Hope's Sacrifice
by GatorSam
Summary: Three years after Lost Hope and the digidestineds have already defeated one of the evils Gennai warned them about. The 'new evil' though is nowhere to be found. Digimon start causing harm for no reason, then everything goes black. Feuds form between the 'inseparable' digidestineds. Can they pull it back together in time? Sometimes victory does not come without a sacrifice...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon or the random quotes from other sources used in this chapter!

Ok, so this story is the sequel to Lost Hope. I have read (skimmed) through Lost Hope and now have been working on planning this story out. I have some pretty exciting things (at least I think) planned for this sequel. I was so pumped when I wrote this first chapter and I think it is a decent start so far. Hopefully I can entice some old readers and new readers into reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following this story. It is all much appreciated, and I also encourage you to read my other current story "One Week." It is a very cool and different fanfic and I urge you to see what it's about. Anyways, here's the first chapter to the sequel (if you haven't read Lost Hope then you might want to before reading this so you don't get confused). Let me know if you have any questions. Review Please!

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Chapter 1:

"As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, X equals Y, Y equals fourteen, and, lickity split, Q equals 37. Now isn't that… interesting?"

It was going to take a lot more than a complete memory wipe-out for him to forget just how boring math class could be. Actually, every subject in school was boring to him, except for maybe writing class; he didn't know why but he really liked to write.

The good thing was that he no longer was completely memory-less anymore. His name was Takeru Takaishi. He was fifteen years old now and was in his first year of high school. He wasn't like the other teenagers sitting in the classroom with him; no, he was different. He wasn't just saying that to make himself feel better either. He was what was called a 'digidestined.' In simple terms, he was one of many other carefully selected teens his age who were chosen to protect a world called the Digital World. In this world lived creature called digimon. All of the digidestineds had their own digimon partner who, at least for him and the other digidestineds he knew, their best friend. Together, the digidestined and the digimon partner fought the evil digimon who were a threat to the Digital World and sometimes even the human world. It was a hard concept for someone to grasp because it was 'so out of this world,' but that was why they were keeping the Digital World a secret.

There also were other worlds besides the human world and the Digital World. One world was called the Dark Ocean which wasn't the greatest of all places. The leader of that world was thankfully destroyed- he and the other digidestineds had defeated Dragomon three years ago. Even with Dragomon gone, however, that world still had such a negative feeling to it.

They also had discovered another world when they were facing a digimon by the name of MaloMyotismon. It was three years ago as well, just after defeating Dragomon. MaloMyotismon, an old enemy they had faced before who had been able to digivolve to a higher level, was using a human by the name of Yukio Oikawa to spread dark spores to the children in Odaiba. They were more worried about the digimon attacks that were happening all across the world. He had gone to France with Tai where they met up with a lovely girl named Catherine. Together they were able to send the digimon in France back to the Digital World. The other digidestineds had gone all over the world to meet up with other digidestineds in order to send the digimon back to the Digital World. When they had returned to Odaiba, though, they discovered all the children affected by the dark spore. Oikawa was leading the children back to MaloMyotismon who was in a world called the land of dreams. They were able to defeat MaloMyotismon before the children were hurt, however. Oikawa sacrificed himself so as to protect the Digital World from future evils such as MaloMyotismon, and since then there haven't been any major threats to the Digital World.

They did remember what Gennai had said a long time ago, however. Gennai had said they were going to face an enemy they had faced before- MaloMyotismon- and another new evil. After the defeat of MaloMyotismon they had been worried about this 'new evil,' but when nothing happened, they decided they'd forget about it until the evil digimon actually started causing a threat.

In the meantime they had been able to rebuild the parts of the Digital World that were attacked and destroy all of the control spires in the Digital World that were remainders of Ken's reign as the 'Digimon Emperor.' Ken was good now, but three years ago he was a real pain. He thought he could rule the Digital World and even created his own digimon partner, but that was a thing of the past. He trusted in Ken and forgave him for what he had done, even though Ken was the reason he had lost his memory in the first place.

His memory was coming back to him, though. Gennai had said that it was possible for him to regain his memory, and Gennai had been right. He had discovered that whenever he went to a place that he had been before he would start to vaguely remember what he had done there previously. Sometimes the memory would come to him right away and other times it took quite a while and he never got the full picture of the memory, but it was definitely an improvement. He also had great friends, mostly his digimon partner- Patamon-, to help him with his memory, so he was pretty happy now; a lot better than what he was three years ago.

Speaking of his friends, none of them were in this class if he remembered correctly. He looked around the classroom trying to recognize the goggle-head named Davis; the purple-haired, huge glasses girl named Yolei; the short and quiet boy named Cody; the violet-haired Ken; and then he looked for the brunette who had a smile that could light up anyone's mood named Kari. Nope, none of them were here in his seventh period Geometry class, but that was ok. They always sat together during lunch and they were going to go over to Davis's house after school to hang out anyways.

He looked at the clock and realized he had been zoning out for an entire thirty minutes now. He didn't know if he should be happy or worried about that; on the bright side there were only three minutes left in the class, but on the not so bright side he wasn't going to have a clue on how to do any of this stuff. He looked at the blackboard his teacher was writing on to see if what they were learning about looked easy, but he sighed. On the board was a circle with a triangle enclosed into it which all was inside of a hexagon. Different angles were marked and parts of the weird shape were shaded. They supposedly had to "Find the area of the shaded regions," and then "Calculate the values of each indicated angle." Nope, he wasn't going to have a clue on how to do any of this, but that was what Yolei and Ken were for!

He looked back up at the clock and saw there were about fifteen seconds left. Wow, this period went by fast! He quickly jotted down the homework and was about to collect his books together when something in his pocket started beeping. Everyone turned to look at him- except the teacher thankfully- and he couldn't stop himself from turning red. Everyone knew there was a strict 'No Cell-Phone' policy that the school followed, but most kids still carried their cell phones on him- they just had theirs on silent mode. That wasn't what he was nervous about, though. He always kept his cell phone and the other electronic devices he carried- his D-Terminal for example- in his school locker. The only one he carried with him everywhere he went was his green, D-three digivice. The D-three was very valuable to a digidestiend, and he had learned not to go anywhere without it. It usually didn't beep in the middle of class, though. The other students didn't know what a D-three was, however, so he couldn't blame them for thinking he had a cell phone on his person. One of the students looked like they were about to tattle-tale on him- seriously, they were in high school- but the bell rang thankfully. Apparently getting out of class was more important than telling their teacher he had a phone on him so everyone charged out of the room. His teacher was frantically yelling over the fuss telling them to make sure they did their homework, but no one really listened.

He got up to his feet, picked up his schoolbooks, and hurried out of the room towards his locker. His locker was fortunately located on the same floor as his geometry class so it did not take long before he was unlocking the lock on his locker. He opened the door and threw his books quickly inside before stuffing his D-Terminal into his pocket and then going to take the D-three out of his pocket. His hand grabbed the device when he heard a voice that made him jump nearly ten feet in the air- he could do that too, he was a basketball player and he had hops!

"Hey Takeru," a soft, high-pitched voice said.

He relaxed a little when he saw who it was, but he let go of the D-three and pulled his hand out of his pocket.

"Hi Kiyomi," he said as he gave his girlfriend a peck on the cheek.

"Ready to walk to English? We don't want to be late…" she started, but he nervously cut her off.

"Umm, I actually… ah, got to… go to the bathroom!" he completed, finishing his made-up excuse. He didn't like lying to Kiyomi, but he couldn't let her find about digimon, no matter how much he liked her.

He shut his locker and ran off in a random direction, not really caring where he was going.

"Takeru? The bathroom's this…" Kiyomi said, but he lost her voice as he continued down the hallway. He turned to the left and opened a door he hoped wasn't a classroom full of students who would look at him weird. He sighed in relief, though, when he found himself in the computer lab which was empty. He closed the door behind him and walked absentmindedly towards the computer they usually used to travel to the Digital World. They could go to any computer to go the Digital World, actually, but they liked using the school's computer lab for some reason. Kari told him that it brought back 'good memories,' good memories that he was not a part of because he was in the Dark Ocean at that time.

Now that he was alone he pulled out his d-three. He was told that his digivice didn't always appear the way it did now. When they had gone on their first digital adventure when he was only eight years old, his digivice looked like his brother's and the rest of the digidestineds' did a gray square device with blue buttons and a little black antenna. Now, though, his digivice was more rectangular-shaped. It was white with a green outline and a green antenna. There was a round, white dial towards the bottom and two black buttons were located to the right of the digital screen. He faintly remembered when it had changed; it was the same time he had found the digi-egg of hope that allowed Patamon to armor digivolve into Pegasusmon.

He looked at the digivice trying to see what was wrong, and his eyes were instantly drawn to the tiny, digital screen. The D-three was still beeping- which he had to admit was starting to get quite annoying- and on the screen were flashing Japanese symbols that were red in color. He wasn't sure what this meant, but he could kind of make out the Japanese symbols. Ever since he had lost his memory, he hadn't been able to read too well. His mind seemed like it was mainly hard-wired for French because of the four years he had lived in France prior to losing his memory. After three years of learning Japanese, though, he was getting it down and he could make out the word 'Help,' from the many symbols on the screen. He knew he had to go to the Digital World, but he wasn't sure if he should warn the others. 'Help,' seemed like it was trouble, but if it was big trouble then wouldn't they all have received the message and the others would be here in the computer lab with him? No, it seemed like he was the only one being called so the others must not be needed.

After coming to this conclusion, he quickly moved the mouse belonging to the computer so as to wake the computer up from its 'sleep.' The computer screen lit brightly showing a black desktop with random images running up the left-most side of the screen. One image he liked the most was the one of an orange fox running around a blue planet that was supposed to be Earth. He tore his eyes away from the application; now wasn't the time for Firefox.

He pointed his D-three at the computer and instantly the portal to the Digital World popped up on the screen. He knew what to do next as they had to say the line every time they entered the Digital World.

"Digi-Port Open!"

A familiar white light shone out from the screen surrounding him and sucking him into the computer. While he was world travelling he pulled his knees to his chest and once he was forced out of the computer he stretched his legs back out. He kept his eyes closed until he regained his composure; for some reason he never quite got used to travelling from the Digital World to the real world or vice versa. He opened his eyes though and smiled seeing that he had landed on his feet. That was a little trick his older brother had taught him one time when the two of them were going to the Digital World. He had to admit, it was a lot more comfortable than being thrown to the ground where they could scrape up their knees because of the rough landing.

He breathed in, and then let out the deep breath as he looked around the Digital World. This place always felt like it was his true home. He knew he was a human and really belonged to the human world, but the Digital World just had… something about it that made him feel more ecstatic than he ever had felt in the real world. If only he could bring Kiyomi here sometime…

He stopped looking mindlessly around, though, when he saw something lying on the ground not too far in front of him. He could tell the thing was actually a digimon, and he gasped when he saw the digimon's cream-colored belly and orange fur and bat wings acting as the digimon's ears. The digimon had scratches all over him and there were a couple of spots where the digimon looked like he had been bitten, more than likely by another digimon. The digimon had dried blood all over him and was not moving a muscle. He got to his knees next to the digimon as worry hit him like a train. This digimon was in terrible shape, and, even worse, this digimon was his partner!

"Patamon!" he said poking his partner. The guinea-pig-like digimon stirred a little bit and lifted his head up off the ground.

"TK?" Patamon said weakly as the digimon smiled up at him, "I'm so glad you're here."

"Patamon, what happened to you?" he asked concernedly as he picked up his partner and held him in his arms.

Just then he heard the howl of what sounded like a wolf off in the distance. Patamon's expression changed to one of fear.

"TK," the digimon said, suddenly sounding ten times more serious, "We have to get out of here! Run!"

He was caught a little off guard, but he quickly got up to his feet and started running as fast as he could. He looked around as he was running and noticed he was on File Island. He looked behind him and saw a huge mountain threatening to touch the sky. It was none other than Infinity Mountain; the mountain where Angemon- Patamon's champion form- sacrificed himself against Devimon in order to protect him and the other digidestineds. Surrounding the base of the mountain was a forest filled with trees that looked like they were baby-size compared to the towering mountain even though they were probably hundreds of feet tall. He heard the wolf howl again, but this time it was significantly closer.

He quickened his pace as he ran into the forest. He passed tree after tree as he ran as fast as he could looking for someplace to hide. Then he spotted a cave not too far away. He decided that was his best bet on a place to hide.

"TK! In there!" Patamon squeaked confirming his thoughts. He finally reached the cave and quickly ran inside. The cave didn't run too deep into the mountain, but there were a couple of boulders he could hide behind. He jumped behind one of them and sat with his back leaning against the rock. Lucky for him the rock was tall enough to hide his head- which wasn't easy all the time because he was a tall person. He sat there trying to catch his breath when all of a sudden he heard a growling coming from outside the cave. He decided to sneak-a-peak to see who it was and quickly moved his head back behind the rock when he saw a black wolf-digimon standing at the entrance of the cave. He could hear the digimon sniffing and his growling then intensified. The wolf digimon started barking wildly, but then he suddenly stopped. He had heard it too; it sounded like an electric blast was going through the air travelling towards him. The buzzing of the electricity stopped and he heard the wolf digimon cry out in pain. He poked his head out to see the wolf digimon running off in a different direction. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he realized he was safe for now.

"Patamon, who is that digimon? I've never seen him before," he asked his partner.

"That's Cerberumon," Patamon answered, "He's only an ultimate digimon, but I was in this form when he snuck up on me. I was caught off guard and he… did this."

"Are you ok?" he asked looking his partner up and down. It sure didn't seem like the orange guinea pig was ok.

"I'll be fine, I just need some rest," Patamon said with finality.

He knew Patamon well enough to know the digimon was not actually fine, but there was nothing he could do right now. He just then realized he could've gone back through the television he had come through and avoided all of this, but he was too freaked out to think of that. See, he didn't necessarily like wolves, though he never told Gabumon, his brother's digimon whose digivolution line was completely based off of wolves.

With Patamon being the way that he was, he knew he couldn't fight Cerberumon on his own, and it didn't seem like he'd be able to get out of this cave without getting caught. He pulled out his D-Terminal which he had been smart enough to bring with him and sent a message to his brother. Since Cerberumon was only an ultimate digimon they only needed one digimon, but that digimon needed to be able to fight, unlike Patamon. Once the message was sent through, he held his partner close and wished on his lucky stars that Cerberumon wouldn't come back any time soon.

* * *

"Let's see what we got here… 'Explain why Phosphorous tri-chloride is polar?' Umm, how about 'Cause God made it that way,'" his best friend said as Tai wrote the last six words onto his chemistry worksheet. He busted up in laughter! Seriously, he was so glad Tai was his best friend again.

Why did Tai have his chemistry worksheet? Well, they both were going to the university now. They had graduated from high school- actually he dropped out two years ago to be in his band because they were 'going to be a thing,' but same difference- and now were taking courses so that they could actually become something in life. He had chosen to study in astronomy while Tai was working on becoming a lawyer. He and Tai both roomed together in an apartment close to the campus located in Odaiba, and whenever they had homework they didn't know how to do they would give it to the other to write down whatever they wanted. Eh, _almost _whatever they wanted; he had tried to get away with writing some nasty comment about the teacher for one of the answers but Tai erased it for some reason before he turned it in. You see, the courses involved with these majors could be a bit… _advanced, _so more than likely they were doing each other's homework rather than doing their own. Their grades showed it, but they were both still passing, amazingly.

He liked living in Odaiba too unlike some of his friends. Mimi, for example, had moved to America- it wasn't her choice but still- and was currently working on becoming a chef. She told them she was going to have her own cooking show like Rachael Ray- none of them knew who Rachael Ray was but they let Mimi go on anyways. Yeah, Mimi had moved to America and was happy done there, but he could never move that far away. He had his friends but even more importantly his family living here. He had just got his little brother, TK, back three years ago after the not-so-little-anymore blonde had gone missing for four years of his life. TK had gone to France with their mother while he stayed here with his father. When TK had first moved away, he and his father hadn't been close at all. His father worked all the time and he basically had to live on his own. Since TK had come back, though, they had become a lot closer. This was mostly because neither of them wanted to lose TK ever again so they made sure someone was always looking out for him. His dad still worked a lot, but he came home earlier more often and he even would sometimes cook supper for them. Now, he had moved out leaving just his brother and father living together, but he made up for it by always trying to hang out with his little brother and going home often. Sometimes TK would complain about him being too close and accused him of being overprotective, but he always ignored that saying his little brother didn't know any better; he had almost lost TK for good and he didn't plan on losing his little brother any time soon.

This was why he may or may not have overreacted when his cell phone vibrated showing he had a message from his little brother. He found it odd that TK had texted him while he was still supposed to be in school- didn't they have a no cell-phone policy? He opened his phone and read out loud,

"Come to the Digital World now! I'm by Infinity Mountain! Hurry! ~TK"

"Oh my…!" he shouted as he quickly got up from the bean-bag chair he was sitting in and started running around the apartment like a chicken with his head cut off. What did he need? Digivice! Anything else? No, he didn't have time! TK could be in trouble! Or even worse…

"MATT!" Tai screamed at the top of his lungs. Apparently his best friend had been trying to get his attention for quite some time but he had been too worried about TK.

"I just messaged Izzy while you were running around and he told me to meet him at his house. Now, let's go so we can actually help your brother instead of worrying half to death," Tai said as he put on his tennis shoes. Tai tossed him his pair of shoes which he cut and quickly tied onto his feet.

Before he knew it he was in Tai's car driving through the streets of Odaiba. Tai was going about sixty miles an hour in the thirty-five miles per hour speed zone to which he worried about being pulled over, but that was quickly thrust to the back of his mind as he realized TK was in trouble. 'Oh snap,' he thought to himself, except he didn't actually think 'snap;' he thought a really bad word.

It seemed like forever- even with Tai's crazy driving- before they pulled into the parking lot of Izzy's apartment complex. He quickly unbuckled his seatbelt- safety first! - and thrust the door open. He jumped out and slammed the door shut before running through the front door. He found his way up the stairs and quickly made it to Izzy's apartment. He knocked several times and looked behind him to see Tai making his way up the last few stairs. The door opened up a little bit and he pushed it the rest of the way so he could get inside.

"What do you think you're doing!" a familiar voice said loudly. He turned and saw a red-headed young adult who had his eyes closed and had a hand up to his head. Apparently he had hit Izzy with the door when he had entered.

"Sorry Izzy," he muttered quickly before saying more loudly, "But we got to go now! Hurry up Tai!" he shouted out behind him.

"I'm right here! No need for yelling," Tai fired back at him, but he ignored it. Instead he quickly ran to Izzy's room and went to the red-head's laptop computer. He smiled a little as he realized it was still the same laptop he had brought with him on their first adventure. He wiped the smile off his face as the severity of the situation was brought back to him. The portal was already set to go to the portal closest to Infinity Mountain. He turned to make sure the other two slow pokes were coming, and once he saw them enter Izzy's room he yelled out,

"Digi-port Open!"

He landed on his feet in the Digital World and quickly started looking around. He quickly spotted the towering mountain and ran right for it. He heard Izzy and Tai call out his name from behind him but he ignored them. TK was in trouble.

Out of nowhere something tackled him. He just about fell over, but whatever had wrapped its arms around him had held him upward. He looked downward and was happy to see a wolf digimon with a fur coat on its head and a yellow horn poking out at him hugging him. He hugged the digimon back.

"Gabumon! Good to see you," he said to the wolf digimon.

"Good to see you as well," Gabumon responded. "What are you doing here?"

"TK's in trouble! He's by Infinity Mountain. Can you digivolve to Garurumon? It would make it a lot faster and he could be hurt," he asked.

Gabumon nodded before stepping back. He watched his partner start glowing and then start changing forms into a much larger wolf digimon. When the light faded, a wolf with blue and white fur, four clawed feet, and very vicious-looking teeth was standing in front of him. He smiled at his partner.

"Matt, will you please wait up for once!?" he heard someone ask from behind him. He turned around to see Tai and Izzy running up to him followed by their partners, Agumon and Tentomon.

"Guys, TK may be hurt…" he started, but then he was cut off.

"Or he may be perfectly fine! We won't know until we find him, but we need to know what we're up against first!"

"I can help you there," Izzy's partner spoke up. He instantly turned to the red-beetle.

"What is it Tentomon? Tell me everything you know! Do you know where TK is?" he inquired.

"Matt! Get a grip dude! You're acting like you did on our first adventure! You were twelve back then!" Tai stated.

"I agree full-heartedly with Tai! And if you ever try to rip Tentomon's head off again with all those questions I will personally… uh, beat you up?" he said, his voice raising as he said the last part and looked towards Tai. Tai nodded.

"Fine," he said, giving up, "I'm sorry. I'm just worried about TK."

"Which is understandable, but it is by no means the necessary reaction to this situation. It will only worsen what is occurring. Now, what were you saying Tentomon?" Izzy asked his partner.

"Right, I was perched up in one of my favorite trees enjoying the view just like any other day when I suddenly heard someone running around below me. I looked down only to see TK running with Patamon in his arms. I didn't get a good look at either of them because they were running so fast. I was wondering what they were running from when I heard a wolf digimon's howl. Then a black blur flew by in the same direction as TK and Patamon. I followed, knowing something was up and saw the digimon, a Cerberumon, standing at the entrance of the cave. I figured TK and Patamon were inside so I attacked Cerberumon from up on the trees. Cerberumon ran away to find who attacked him, and I then went to find a television to contact you Izzy," the beetle digimon finished.

He instantly spoke up, "Where's this cave Tentomon? Can you show us?"

"Sure thing," he said.

"Wait a second!" Izzy called out just as he was about to mount Garurumon. "What level is this Cerberumon?"

"He's an ultimate level digimon," Agumon piped up.

"Then we should digivolve to ultimate in case we run into Cerberumon!" Izzy said.

He nodded. Why didn't he even think of that? Sometimes he could be so thick-headed.

Their partners digivolved into their ultimate forms and then they were quickly headed towards Infinity Mountain. MegaKabuterimon was leading the way with MetalGreymon and WereGarurumon following. With the speed that their digimon's ultimate forms possessed, they had found the cave in no time. WereGarurumon set him down on the ground and he quickly ran into the cave.

"TK!" he called out loudly. He heard his voice echo off the cave walls just as loudly.

He heard something stir behind one of the boulders.

"Gosh! Don't scare me like that," a blonde boy said as he stood up revealing himself.

"TK!" he called out as he ran to his brother. He hugged his brother tight before being pushed backwards.

"You're going to hurt Patamon even worse!" TK said angrily. He swore, he didn't know a digidestined that was as protective of his partner as TK was of Patamon. Of course his brother had lost his partner twice now, but still.

"I'm sorry TK," he said. He looked his brother over to make sure nothing was wrong with him before looking at Patamon. His brother was fine, but Patamon looked terrible. He was asleep right now but the digimon looked like he had been mauled by some vicious dog, most likely Cerberumon.

"Are you ok…" he started but he was cut off.

"I'm fine Matt! I don't need you to be so worried about me all the time! I can take care of myself!" TK shouted angrily.

Ok, little brother was not in a good mood.

"TK, you don't understand. I was so worried…" he tried again, but once again was stopped mid-sentence.

"I never asked you to be worried about me," he stated.

He tried to say something, but no words came to mind. His brother had asked him to help, and this was how TK was going to treat him? He had to refrain himself from hitting TK. Instead of getting angry he just comforted himself by thinking, 'he's ok.'

TK walked past him outside the cave. He followed his brother out and noticed Tai and Izzy along with all of their ultimates facing away from the cave with a determined expression on their faces.

"Hellfire!" he heard a snarly voice call out.

"Matt!" WereGarurumon shouted as the digimon jumped towards him, picked him up, and jumped away from the attack.

He looked behind him and watched his little brother jump out of the way of the blast Cerberumon had sent. The fire attack rushed past them and went inside the cave. Cerberumon started growling and barking before jumping towards MegaKabuterimon.

"Ahh!" MegaKabuterimon shouted out as the wolf digimon bit down onto the digimon's leg. The beetle digimon tried to shake Cerberumon off but the digimon had a strong bite.

"MegaKabuterimon stop moving!" WereGarurumon ordered.

MegaKabuterimon obeyed and WereGarurumon ran on all fours towards Cerberumon.

"Wolf Kick!" WereGarurumon shouted with his leg outstretched as he jumped towards the wolf digimon. Cerberumon looked up just as WereGarurumon was inches away and was hit dead on.

"GigaBlaster!"

"Horn Buster!"

The two ultimates shouted out their attacks which were launched towards the fallen wolf digimon. They hit dead on resulting in a big explosion. When the smoke cleared he saw that Cerberumon was gone. Their digimon reverted back to their rookie forms, and he quickly ran over to his brother who was slowly getting up.

As he neared his brother he asked "TK! Are you ok? Did that attack hit you? I'm sorry…"

"Matt, I swear to goodness if you don't stop flipping out every time something bad happens to me I am going to punch you. I am not a fragile little kid anymore. I am fifteen!"

"But TK…" he started, but he stopped himself when he saw his brother's face.

"Thank you all for saving us," TK said before running off. He got about five feet away before he turned back towards us.

"Where's the nearest television?" he asked awkwardly.

Izzy pointed in the direction they came from and TK turned and started running off in the direction indicated. He had noticed TK was starting to get annoyed with him, but today was by far the worst. Was there something that had happened to his brother that caused him to be like this? That must've been it! Something must've happened to TK! But what could it have been? Oh, what if it wasn't something he could fix? What if TK was in danger?

* * *

He knocked on the door holding his partner who was still sound-asleep in his arms. Once he found his way back to the television and went back to the real world he had discovered school was out for over an hour already. The others were probably worried about him and were more than likely talking about him right now at Davis's, and what about Kiyomi? She couldn't be too happy with him right now, but all that had to wait. Right now he needed to get to Joe's place and fast!

He quickly opened up his locker and looked at his phone. Twenty text messages?! 'Seriously guys,' he thought to himself. They all probably thought he randomly disappeared and was going to be gone for another four years…

He ignored the messages and quickly dialed Joe's number to tell him he was coming over. Joe was confused but didn't ask questions. He showed up at Joe's who was shocked by Patamon's wounds. He then had to explain everything, but he was willing to because Joe was helping Patamon. Within half an hour he had explained everything and Joe had Patamon all bandaged and cleaned up. Joe told him to make sure Patamon rested for as long as he needed to before he left to go to Davis's.

And now he was at Davis's. He didn't necessarily like Davis when he had first met him… and he still didn't like him now. Granted that was mostly because he was dating Kari, but he had a girlfriend now and was 'over' Kari. He also didn't like how Davis was so arrogant; other than that, though, Davis was fine.

He heard frantic footsteps run to the door and the door was flung open wide. He saw Kari, Yolei, and Cody standing at the door all looking at him like he was the bloody ghost of Christmas past. But then their expressions changed to those of a mix between anger and relief.

"TK!"

"I knew you were ok!"

"Why didn't you answer my twenty messages…?"

He ignored them, though, and pushed by them. He was tired of people worrying about him. First his brother, and now all of these guys. He was glad they cared about him, but they were suffocating him.

He walked into the living room of Davis's place. Mr. and Mrs. Motomiya were sitting on the couch watching the news while Davis, Ken, and Willis were lying on the floor playing a board game- though it didn't exactly use a board- called Jenga. At least they were playing it until Davis pulled out a piece and the tower went crumbling down. Willis and Ken both laughed at Davis and the goggle-head started blushing.

"Oh, hey TK," Willis said looking up at him. It was then when Willis's eyes landed on the digimon in his arms. "What happened?" he asked dead serious.

Davis looked up and saw Patamon as well and then announced, "Guy talk! My room!"

He just then realized he had brought a digimon into the real world, into Davis's apartment, without thinking of anyone spotting Patamon. Luckily no one said anything, but he still had to avoid Davis's parents.

He quickly made his way for Davis's room while Willis and Ken both followed. He closed the door, being the last one, but then the door was opened again and he saw Cody walk in.

"What happened?" Willis asked again.

He sighed and then went onto telling them all what had happened. He told them what he told Joe, leaving out the parts involving his fights with his brother. When he finished Ken asked, "Is Patamon going to be all right."

"Yes," he answered with a nod, "Joe took good care of him. He just said he needs to rest a lot."

"Good ol'reliable Joe," Cody said with a smile.

He nodded again.

"You can let Patamon rest in here and then we can go back out. My parents will start to wonder what's going up if we stay in here too much longer," Davis said.

"Right, thanks Davis," he said as he set his partner on Davis's bed very carefully. As they exited the room, he took one good look at his partner and petted his head. He hated it when his partner got injured like this.

Patamon had a nick of sacrificing himself for him. Even without his memory, there were countless of times where Patamon had taken the bullet for him. And then Patamon had actually sacrificed himself and died two times now! Granted, both times Patamon was able to come back because digimon never really die, but it still was scary and not a guaranteed thing.

"You coming TK?" Ken asked him as he stood by the door.

He turned and nodded while walking out, leaving his partner in the room.

The rest of the day went by relatively fast. He was able to play games and have fun with his friends and forget about what had happened during the day. He got annoyed whenever Kari or Yolei would ask why he hadn't brought them along with him, but he didn't yell at them because they were his friends and just wanted to help him. Like Matt. Maybe he shouldn't have been so hard on his brother… No, Matt was too worried about him. He was mad at his brother. Matt needed to learn to back off and not try to act like… his mother.

His mother. He didn't remember too much of her, but he did get a few memories here and there. Most were bad memories like the night of the divorce, the day they moved to France, and the day he was forbidden from coming back to Odaiba. But he still loved his mother and wished she were here. And his grandparents. They seemed like they were such funny people…

"*Yawn* I'm getting tired. I think I'm going to head home!" Willis announced.

Going home. Matt was going to be there, and he was mad at Matt. Without even thinking, he spoke up, "Willis, can I stay the night at your house? It is the weekend after all…"

Everyone looked at him confusedly, except for Willis who looked ecstatic.

"Are you serious dude?" he asked excitedly.

He nodded to which Willis cried out in joy. For a second he may or may not have judged Willis to roll a certain way, but then he continued, "That's awesome! No one ever wants to stay at my place! We can stay up and watch basketball all night and talk about girls and… This is going to be awesome!"

He had to admit, it did sound like it was going to be fun. More fun than going back to his dad's apartment and have to face his brother.

"No one ever wants to stay at my place," Davis pouted.

"Davis," Ken said, "I stay at your house just about every weekend. Am I no one?"

Davis didn't answer which probably was the best decision.

"I think I'm heading home too. Cody, you ready to go?" Yolei asked.

Cody nodded.

They all said their goodbyes and one-by-one they left Davis's place. Yolei, Cody, and Ken left first. Then Kari left, but not after giving Davis a kiss. He couldn't stop himself from glaring at the two. Once Kari was gone they went to Davis's room where he turned on his computer before saying, "Peace out homies," and walking back outside.

The portal opened once Willis held out his digivice. Willis lived in America- New York to be exact- and it would normally take… a very long time to get to Odaiba. What they found out, though, was that travelling through the Digital World was much faster. So this is what they did.

He was about to say the famous one-liner when Willis turned to him.

"So, you like Kari, huh?" Willis asked raising his eyebrows.

He couldn't stop himself from blushing to which Willis busted out in laughter.

"Don't worry," he said, "I do too."

The way Willis said it, adding a wink at the end, made him start laughing as well. So, Willis was serious when they said they were going to talk about girls.

"Digi-Port open!"

* * *

"Sora, why is TK being like this?" he asked the auburn-haired girl sitting next to him.

They were sitting in the park. This was their normal meeting place when they were younger, so they still came here every now and then to sort of live back the old times. They usually met up every Friday, like today, to catch up on Digital World stuff. Today's topic was Cerberumon of course, but they didn't think anything of it seeing as they were used to the occasional rogue digimon. Actually, they never really talked about Digital World stuff very much because there wasn't much going on. Gennai's 'new evil' was nonexistent. They already had cleaned up the Digital World and destroyed the control spires and covered up the digimon attacks as best as they could. People could be really dumb sometimes; the government tried to play the attacks as a terrorist scheme and the people bought it even though they saw the monsters with their own two eyes.

Mimi would come and occasionally bring Michael with her on these meetings. They travelled through the Digital World in order to get to Odaiba for time's sake. He couldn't blame them coming from America and all, but he noticed that Joe and Izzy weren't too happy about Michael being there. He wasn't dumb; he could see the love rectangle or whatever it was called forming there. Tai was sitting next to Sora and he would occasionally send glares directed at him, but he didn't know what that could be for. He was only talking to Sora, his girlfriend, granted, but still. They were best friends; sure, he had feelings for Sora but he wasn't about to act upon them with Tai being his best friend and all.

"I think you just need to give him time Matt. I mean, TK's been through _a lot_. I think he'll come back around eventually. In fact, I think he's waiting to apologize at your dad's apartment right now."

Just then his phone vibrated. He took it out of his pocket and saw he had a message from TK. He smiled thinking it was TK apologizing. He opened the phone up and viewed the message.

His hopes were shattered as he read the message. 'Staying at Willis's… don't _worry _about me.'

"What is it?" Sora asked, reading his expression change for the worst. He showed her the message and she then looked disappointed as well.

"Oh, well, like I said just give it time Matt. If worse comes to worst then I'll send Kari or even myself to go talk some sense into him."

"Thanks Sora, it means a lot," he said as he looked into her eyes. 'Dang,' he thought to himself as she smiled at him, 'Tai is one lucky man.'

"*Ah hem*" Tai cleared his throat. "I think we should call it a night," he said out loud.

"But it's only ten in the morning…" Mimi started to say but then, "Oh, sorry, we're not in America anymore."

Just then a sudden beeping noise sounded. He looked to Sora seeing that the sound was coming from her. She rummaged in her pockets- Joe doing the same- until they both pulled out their digivices. A worried expression was plastered on their faces.

"Uh, guys, we got trouble."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon!

Ok, so this is a shorter chapter and I'm not very proud of it. I don't think it's that well written... but these intro chapters aren't necessarily the most important to the story. For anyone that cares, I think I might be able to extend this series into a 3-part series, but that all depends on how I want to end this particular story and if I feel like writing another story in this 'Lost Hope' Series. Anyways, that's just me rambling on. Let me know what you think of the story, chapter, my writing, etc. in a review please! Also favoriting and following and all that stuff is much enjoyed. Plus, I highly encourage anyone who likes digimon fanfics to read my other current story "One Week" because that one hasn't been getting too much popularity and I would like to see what you all think about it... But it's not like you have to, it's just author advertising per say. Well, enjoy this chapter as much as you can!

* * *

Chapter 2:

Running through Odaiba in the middle of the night knowing his digimon partner was in trouble was not his idea of fun at all. He wasn't used to Gomamon being in trouble anymore because there hadn't been anything harming the Digital World for quite some time now. Sure there were a couple of rogue digimon like Cerberumon before, but that only happened maybe once a month and they never received distress calls because their digimon had always been able to digivolve and defeat the digimon. But today there had been three distress calls. One was Patamon's, and he had seen Patamon's wounds with his own eyes; they were not good! Now his and Sora's digivices were receiving distress calls. Something was obviously going on, and he couldn't stop himself from thinking the worst had happened to Gomamon.

As they kept on running he couldn't keep himself from getting mad at Izzy. That kid always had his laptop on him all the time, but when they actually needed to use it to get to the Digital World he didn't have it. Gomamon could be under attack right now, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he ever lost his digimon.

He and Sora were running side-by-side in front of the others. Clearly she was just as worried about Biyomon as he was of Gomamon. The other original digidestineds were following them… and Michael. Why was he here again? Oh, that's right, he was _Mimi's _friend.

He often wondered what was going on between those two. Michael definitely seemed like he was into Mimi. What, with the way he put his arm around her all the time, never left her side; he was really annoying if you were someone who also may be into Mimi.

Izzy had also seemed as frustrated with Michael as he had. It was no secret to any of them- except for maybe Mimi he supposed- that both he and Izzy liked Mimi. At first when they found out they both liked Mimi they had been mad at each other. They didn't even talk to each other for three months! That was over with now, and they both came to accept the fact that there was going to be competition. They actually decided to make a little game of it; whoever got the balls- as Tai and Matt liked to say- to ask Mimi out first could have her to themselves without the other interfering. Neither of them was very outgoing, though, so even after four years of liking Mimi none of them had asked Mimi out or let her know what they thought of her. He always reasoned that he was too busy with school to have a girlfriend while Izzy just said he was waiting for the right moment. Well, it seemed like both of them had waited too long because Mimi seemed pretty happy with Michael, but he still held on to the hope that they weren't dating. No one ever asked if the two of them were dating…

After what seemed like forever- he wasn't much into the whole running thing- they finally were at Izzy's apartment. They entered the building, climbed up the stairs, and Izzy got the spare key under the welcome mat and opened up the apartment. They walked into the apartment and he heard Izzy's mom call out, "Izzy? Is that you?"

"Yeah mom, I'm home, and I brought guests," Izzy replied.

"Guests?" asked, shocked. "Do you want me to…?"

"No mom, we'll just be in my room," Izzy said cutting off his mother.

"Alright, but if you…" continued, but he stopped listening to her as he followed Izzy and Sora to Izzy's room. The seven of them fit into the tiny room surprisingly and Izzy sat down on his desk turning on his laptop.

"Why didn't you have your laptop on you, Izzy?" Sora asked sounding frustrated.

"I told you it had to charge!" Izzy said just as frustrated.

Tai asked, "Could you hurry it up Izzy?"

"I cannot control the computer's speed Tai!" he yelled.

Tai's face twisted with anger as he yelled back, "I was just asking! No need to bite my head off!"

"Tai, we don't need to fight," Matt tried to reason, but Tai just turned on Matt instead.

"No one asked you blondie!" Tai retorted.

Now it was Matt's turn to get angry. He was about to yell back and maybe even attack Tai when Izzy shouted out, "Guys stop it! We're good to go!"

He turned his attention to Izzy who had the digi-port open on his screen. Luckily Tai and Matt stopped their bickering and turned to listen to Izzy as well.

"It appears Biyomon's and Gomamon's distress calls came from two different parts of the Digital World but they are very far apart. One is on Server close to Digitamamon's restaurant while the other is near the Yokomon village," Izzy said.

"Well the latter has to be Biyomon's! I got to go now!" Sora said.

"Just hold on a second; I don't even have the portal fully set up yet!" Izzy quickly added before Sora could get out her digivice.

"Are you saying we have to split up?" he asked Izzy who turned to him and nodded.

"Sora is probably right," he started, "Biyomon would most likely be near Yokomon village and Digitamamon's restaurant is close to some water which is why Gomamon would be there."

Sora spoke up, "Well I'm obviously going to get Biyomon!"

"Me too!" Tai said just as Matt added, "I'm with you." The two of them glared at each other- seriously what was up with them, they were best friends weren't they? – But Izzy continued before they could yell at each other.

"Ok, so Sora, Tai, and Matt will go get Biyomon. That leaves Joe, Mimi, Michael, and myself to go find Gomamon. That's as even as we're going to get so I say we pursue our course of action with these groups. We will meet back here after we save Biyomon and Gomamon. Sound like a plan?" Izzy asked.

Tai nodded, "Let's go."

Izzy typed on his keyboard a little bit before turning to Sora and nodded. Sora then called out "Digi-port open!" and a bright white light surrounded her, Tai, and Matt and they were sucked into the Digital World. Once they were gone Izzy typed a little more before saying, "Ok, let's go!"

"Digi-port open!" he yelled before they could waste any more time. And with that the white light returned and he was on his way to go rescue his digimon partner.

* * *

She was dumped to the ground and heard a grunt coming from her side where someone else had landed next to her. She shook her head to regain herself and went to get up to her feet when someone grabbed her arm.

"Let me help you Sora," a voice said as she was pulled up to her feet. She recognized the voice as Matt's.

"Thanks Matt," she said as she brushed the dust off of her jeans. She heard Tai practically growl at Matt and sent him a glare. Matt stuck his tongue out at Tai making the goggle-heads face turn red from anger.

Seriously, she was with two of the most immature people ever. Tai and Matt were both best friends, but there was no getting rid of the rivalry that existed between the two of them. She could handle the little bit of rivalry as long as the two of them were best friends.

She had remembered three years ago when Matt and her boyfriend were as distant as she was to, say, Cody; they both knew who each other was, but that was it. It was weird because before then the two had been inseparable, but Matt had gone through some rough times with the loss of his mother and the whole TK thing. Tai hadn't really been much of a friend to Matt during that time, but the two had finally made up and everything was back to being normal. Well, almost normal; it wasn't an everyday occurrence to receive three distress calls from their partners in the same day.

She looked around the part of the Digital World she was in- while Tai and Matt both greeted their digimon partners- and instantly knew where she was. This was the Yokomon village, or at least it had been the Yokomon village. All of the tiny huts were shattered to pieces and there were no Yokomon around. She looked around for what could have caused the attack, but her eyes instantly froze on a life-less pink bird digimon who was lying in the sand a couple of feet in front of her. She didn't wait a second to start charging at her partner.

"Sora watch out!" Tai called out towards her. She ignored her boyfriend, but then was tackled to the ground as a voice she didn't recognize called out, "Ninja Blade!"

Her back hit the ground hard, but luckily it was just sand. She looked up and saw Tai on top of her. She quickly pecked the boy on his cheek and muttered, "Thanks Tai!" causing him to blush and look embarrassed, but then he shook his head and got up to his feet. He pulled her up to his feet and she looked to see who their attacker was.

The digimon looked intimidating, and she had seen some pretty intimidating digimon in her lifetime. This digimon had to be about seven or eight feet tall and was wearing red shoulder guards and helmet that had a crazy, yellow design on the top of it. The digimon also had long purple hair and was holding a huge sword in its right hand. She didn't remember ever seeing this digimon before…

"That's Musyamon! We better watch out," Agumon spoke up.

"Matt, you should have Gabumon digivolve," Tai said, his voice hinting at the fear the goggle-head was feeling right about now.

"Right," Matt said pulling out his digivice, "Gabumon digi…"

Matt was cut off by another voice she hadn't heard before. This voice was raspy and sounded like it was more of a howl than an attack, "Snipe Steal!"

She turned towards Matt who was looking at where his digivice had been in his hand in confusion. Then she saw a red blur going off towards the woods that was nearby the village.

"That creep just stole my digivice!" Matt shouted out in frustration as he started running after the digimon. Musyamon ran off towards Matt.

"What digimon was that?" she asked to no one in particular. Even if she would have got a good look at the digimon running away she wouldn't have recognized him.

"That one was Fangmon," Agumon answered for her.

"Agumon, you know what to do!" Tai said looking at his yellow-dinosaur partner. Agumon nodded in return before he started glowing. He changed forms first to Greymon and then to MetalGreymon. MetalGreymon quickly took to the air to chase the scary-looking digimon who was chasing Matt and Gabumon who were both chasing the incredibly fast red-blur of a digimon.

"Come on Sora," Tai said motioning for her to follow him so that they could chase after MetalGreymon who was chasing after…. Agh, it was too confusing. She quickly ran over to Biyomon and picked her digimon up in her arms before running off with Tai towards MetalGreymon who was already in battle with the samurai digimon. MetalGreymon was able to wield off the other digimon's attacks easily enough and was about to launch missiles from his breasts- which was a weird place for missiles to come from she though, but maybe it was just her- when she heard another unknown voice call out, "Megaton Hammer Crush!"

She looked over to her right to see a huge green dragon-like digimon charging towards MetalGreymon. The digimon had four legs and on its back were two huge arms that were clawed. The digimon also had a tail with a silver, spiked sphere attached at the end. The end of the digimon's tail reminded her of a landmine that was used underwater- though those probably weren't called _land_mines; more likely water mines or something else of the sort.

The green dragon digimon jumped and lashed its tail towards the unsuspecting MetalGreymon who was hit by the tail and was launched through the air. MetalGreymon hit the ground hard and was about to get up when the dragon ran surprisingly quickly over to him before he could get back up.

"Scrapless Claw!" the dragon shouted out. She watched as the digimon's two arms picked up MetalGreymon and started pushing together, crushing MetalGreymon who was struggling to get free but to no avail.

"MetalGreymon!" Tai called out, but she held his boyfriend's hand to hold him back; she didn't need him to go doing something stupid and getting himself hurt.

"Shogun Sword!" Musyamon yelled out his attack. The digimon's sword suddenly spurt out flames that formed a ghost-dragon-like image. The swordsman ran towards MetalGreymon and slashed his sword causing the fire-ghost-dragon to leave the blade of the sword and hit MetalGreymon. MetalGreymon cried out in pain and Tai pulled free from her grasp.

"MetalGreymon!" he called out, running to his partner. Then his digivice and crest both started glowing as well as MetalGreymon. She watched as MetalGreymon changed forms to WarGreymon, a smaller but much more powerful form for Agumon. The dragon digimon continued to try to squish WarGreymon, but WarGreymon was much stronger than the other digimon. WarGreymon pushed the digimon's huge arms away and flew up into the air. He reached his arms above his head as a huge ball of fire formed.

"Terra Force!" WarGreymon shouted out as he released his attack at the dragon digimon and the samurai digimon. The fireball exploded on impact causing smoke to form all over, disabling her sight. When she finally could see again she saw that both the dragon digimon and the digimon with the sword were no longer there anymore. Tai had stopped running to the middle of the battle and looked very relieved, but WarGreymon looked like he was about to pass out from exhaustion. The mega digimon held his current form, however, and flew over towards Tai, picking him up. Then WarGreymon flew over to her- still holding Biyomon close to her- and picked her up as well.

"Which digimon was the green dragon?" she asked WarGreymon.

"Groundramon," he replied between pants.

"We need to find Matt, WarGreymon," Tai said as WarGreymon flew in the direction Matt had run off to chase after the red blur digimon, Fangmon. She looked around to see if she could see Matt, but he was nowhere to be seen so he must have gone into the forest.

"Gabumon!" a voice, clearly Matt's, called out loudly. WarGreymon instantly altered his flight pattern to head off in the direction Matt's voice came from. They came to a clearing in the forest and saw Gabumon on the ground, struggling to get back up to his feet. Matt was on his knees next to his partner looking up at what she guessed was Fangmon.

This digimon gave her the creeps even more so than Groundramon or even Musyamon. Fangmon was a wolf and had a long snout. The digimon's mouth was opened revealing many sharp, white teeth. The digimon's fur was red and his four legs were covered in black leather. The digimon's claws were purple, and its tail was mixed with red and white fur.

WarGreymon set her and Tai down on the ground before lunging towards the wolf digimon. Fangmon was extremely fast, though, and was able to avoid the attack.

"Blast Coffin!" Fangmon called out with his raspy, wolf-like voice, but WarGreymon quickly lunged again towards the digimon.

"Mega Claw!" WarGreymon shouted as he extended his sharp claw at the wolf digimon. Fangmon launched black flames at WarGreymon, but WarGreymon's claw was able to pierce through the attack. She watched as WarGreymon's talons stabbed through the wolf digimon who instantly dispersed into millions of pieces of data.

WarGreymon de-digivolved into Koromon, and Tai ran over to pick up his partner. As she- still holding onto an unconscious Biyomon- stood there watching Matt- who was helping Gabumon stand up- and Tai, all she could think to say was, "Woah."

* * *

After travelling to and from the Digital World so many times, one would assume that the world-travelling became sort of like a routine. Try telling that to his stomach. He hated travelling between worlds; he always felt sick afterwards and he didn't necessarily enjoy feeling like he was being sucked down into a toilet. At least it was over now.

Once he got to his feet he quickly scanned the area. Mimi, Joe… and _Michael _were all there- seriously, who did that guy think he was for trying to steal Mimi away. If he wanted anyone to be with Mimi- excluding himself- it would've been Joe, but not this blonde, American freak. Maybe he was judging Michael a little harshly and partially out of jealousy. Ok, maybe it all was because he was jealous of Michael, but he couldn't stop himself. It just wasn't fair that Mimi had run off to America leaving him basically no opportunity to commence the whole dating process.

As he continued to look around, he saw an ocean- or maybe it was a lake, he couldn't be sure which it actually was. He turned back around and saw Digitamamon's restaurant sitting up above them, but it was… on fire? He heard something whiz by from above and watched as the missile exploded upon hitting the restaurant. He looked to see if he could identify their attackers and he spotted a digimon that looked a lot like Tankmon. This digimon was pure machine and was covered all over in armor except for his torso and upper arms which were blue in color and showed defined muscles. There were two canons over the digimon's shoulders along with two other firearm devices on the outside of the canons.

"What kind of digimon is that?" Mimi asked, pointing up to where the tank digimon was at. He wanted to scold her for asking her question so loudly, but if the digimon had heard her he didn't seem to care too much. He kept rolling on his tank treads towards the restaurant.

"Gomamon!" he heard Joe gasp from behind him. He turned around and spotted the little white seal lying on the ground a little ways away from the television. At first glance the digimon seemed alright- save for the unconsciousness part- but then he spotted a red area on the digimon's fur. He was about to run over to check on Gomamon with Joe, but then he heard a familiar high-pitched voice call out his name.

"Izzy! Izzy!" a voice- no doubt his partner's- called out loudly. A couple of other voices joined in too.

"Mimi!" Palmon, unmistakably, yelled.

"Michael!" a new voice- it must have been _Michael's _partner, a Betamon.

They all turned towards the voices and he smiled at his partner.

"Tentomon!" he said happily.

"Now is not the time for 'hello's'" his digimon partner said much more seriously than the digimon usually was, "Tankdramon is attacking Digitamamon's restaurant! We need to stop him!"

He looked back up at the restaurant and saw most of the building was on fire. A big pillar of smoke was ascending from the restaurant.

"Right," he said, "Digivolve?"

Tentomon nodded before starting to glow a bright white. He covered his eyes until the bright light was gone, and when he was able to see again he saw Kabuterimon standing in front of him.

"Go get him Kabuterimon!" he ordered.

He watched as Kabuterimon flew up towards the restaurant. Michael's Betamon had also digivolved to his champion form, a Seadramon, and he watched as the sea-serpent digimon climbed up the ledge vertically. For a second he wondered how that was physically possible, but he passed off the thought. He also noticed Lillymon, Palmon's ultimate form, flying up to join Seadramon and Kabuterimon in battle.

Turning his attention away from the battle, he quickly moved over to Joe who was kneeling next to his unconscious partner. He went next to his friend and dropped to his knees as well as he inspected the marine digimon.

Gomamon looked as if nothing was wrong with him. There were no scratches or blood marks on the digimon, but then again the seal-digimon's fur had a tendency of hiding any injuries done to him. Despite looking 'ok' from the outside, he could tell that something was wrong with Gomamon. His breathing was very shallow and his entire body was shaking all over.

"Joe, what do you think is wrong with him?" he asked, looking over at Joe who looked as worried as a deer in headlights.

Joe shook his head, "I… I don't know. I can't tell what hurt him or how he got hurt. There's one mark, here…" at this he pointed to a tiny red mark on Gomamon that he hadn't seen before, "… that looks like a puncture wound, but the bleeding has stopped and I don't know what could be causing him to be like… _this,_" Joe finished.

Izzy nodded his head. He didn't know what could've happened to Gomamon either, and- unless some of the other digimon had seen what happened- they would have to wait until Gomamon woke up before they could know for sure what happened.

Suddenly there was a loud _thump _and the ground started to shake. He quickly got up to his feet and looked over to where he thought he heard the noise and saw laying on the ground on his back trying to get up, but failing at doing so. When he realized it was hopeless, Tankdramon just decided on launching all of the missiles that he could.

"Striver Canon!" Tankdramon yelled out launching two mini-nukes at their partner digimon who were flying down towards him.

"Ice Blast!" Seadramon counterattacked sending his freezing breath at the two nukes. Even from the distance away that he was at, he could see a thick layer of ice surrounding the two nukes and they both instantly fell to the ground. For a split second he was afraid the nukes were going to explode, but the ice surrounding the bombs must have made the nukes in-explodable- which was really convenient he had to admit. He turned his attention back to their digimon who were now readying their attacks at Tankdramon.

"Electro Shocker!" he heard Kabuterimon yell out as he formed a purple ball of electricity in front of him and then released it.

"Ice Blast!" Seadramon hissed, using the same attack as he had used on the nukes.

"Flower Cannon!" Lillymon finished the attacks sending a blast of green energy towards Tankdramon from the flower canon she had formed.

The attacks combined as they flew at Tankdramon who was unable to move out of the way. The tank digimon tried to force the attack away by shooting at it while yelling out "Blast Gatling," but it was no use. The attack hit full power, and when the smoke cleared Tankdramon was gone.

Mimi cheered and he relaxed a little bit now that the battle was over, but then he heard something rise up out of the water. He was about to turn around to see what was going on when a voice bellowed, "Black Out!"

Instantly he started coughing as he and the others were surrounded by black smog. As his mind processed what was going on, he took in a deep breath and held it in. This smog was some sort of toxic and breathing in any more of it could prove fatal to him- and the others since they were in this smog as well; hopefully they were smart enough to hold their breath as well.

Just when he thought he couldn't hold his breath for any longer, the smog finally cleared up and he started gasping for air. He could hear the others strangled attempts at taking in fresh air as well, which was good since it meant they were all alive.

As he looked around he noticed all of their digimon partners were now in their rookie forms and were too tired to continue fighting. This was not good, he realized, as his eyes set upon their new attacker.

The digimon who was now standing in front of them was a scorpion digimon- kind of like Scorpiomon- except for the fact that the digimon stood on two legs and was completely made out of bones. The digimon's pincer looked extremely sharp and dangerous, and he also looked like he'd enjoy stabbing each of them multiple times with his tail- which didn't sound particularly fun, but that could just be him.

The skull scorpion digimon walked right up to him and glared down at him. The digimon started clicking its claws and hissed at him. He wondered what the digimon was doing, but then a sense of dread overwhelmed him as he realized the digimon was laughing at him.

"Poison Pierce!" the skull scorpion hissed. He watched the tail fly at him at an extremely high speed and he closed his eyes, bracing himself for the attack.

Suddenly he was hit on his side by something. The momentum caused him to fall to his side and he felt something, or someone, land on top of him. Then he heard somewhat familiar voices call out, "Treasure Axe!" and "Rapid Fire!"

He faintly heard an explosion near him and he really wanted to get out of the way, but he was kind of stuck. TK was on top of him looking over at what must have been the battle going on. He watched the blonde start to smile and he could only hope that meant the scorpion digimon was destroyed. It was then that TK seemed to realize he had not gotten off of him, so the blonde quickly pushed himself up to his feet and TK offered him a hand to help him up.

"Is he gone?" he asked TK. The scorpion digimon was nowhere to be seen; Michael, Mimi and Joe were holding their partners in their arms; Willis was holding onto an unconscious, bandaged-up Patamon; and Rapidmon and Antylamon were both de-digivolving into their rookie forms.

"Yeah," TK nodded, "That was SkullScorpiomon- or at least that's what Terriermon said."

It just then dawned upon him that his life had just been saved, and he quickly said, "Thanks for saving my life TK!"

TK's face turned a little red and the blonde put his head on the back of his head. "Ah," TK said, "It was nothing."

After thanking TK, he ran over to where Tentomon was slowly trying to get up off of the ground.

"Tentomon," he said as he knelt next to his partner, "Are you alright?"

"I've had better days," Tentomon truthfully admitted.

At least it all was over, but now that all the excitement and danger were over with, he was left with the question as to why these digimon were acting like this. It wasn't unusual for a rogue digimon to attack a digimon village every once and a while, but to have three distress calls and at least three- even more depending on what happened to Sora, Tai, and Matt- rogue digimon all in the same day was not a normal occurrence. It could just be coincidence that all of this was happening, but to him it seemed very unlikely.

He could have spent the next twelve or more hours coming up with possible theories as to these rogue digimon, but his mind was too tired to think anymore.

After talking to TK and Willis- who had luckily been walking to a digital portal close to her to go back to America when they heard the explosions from Tankdramon- they all decided to head back to the real world. He wondered for a moment why TK was staying with Willis, but he instantly dismissed the thought because thinking about it would require energy and he didn't have much left for the day especially now that he had to carry Tentomon.

The portal they had entered from was somehow not destroyed by the previous battles, so they didn't have to walk far at all before they took out their digivices. Michael and Mimi had talked about the battle the whole way there and acted like they weren't tired at all. He then realized that the two were both used to America's time, not Japan's. He checked his watch and saw that it said the time was twelve thirty-four in the morning. If his math was right- which he didn't like to brag but it was ninety-nine point nine percent of the time- then that meant for them it was eleven thirty-four in the morning which also meant that they were a whole day behind Japan.

Mimi cheered out, "Digi-Port Open!" and the familiar white light surrounded and pulled them into the television screen. His stomach churned as he once again experience the "fun" of world-travelling. He just couldn't wait to get to bed and forget about all that had happened today.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon... or HIMYM!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated this story; I've just been really busy with graduating and getting ready for high school and all that stuff. But the good news is I will soon be buying a laptop and it will be a lot easier to write this story (and One Week which basically no one is reading/reviewing :/ ) as I won't have to fight for computer time anymore! Anyways, this chapter is a somewhat long one. Not much action per say, until the end of the chapter, but you get some insight on what is happening and get to see a little bit on where this story is heading. I don't really want to give too much away, though... I need to have some surprises! But here's chapter 3! Not super awesome... but the story's starting to build up here. Thanks for all the reviews/favorites/follows/etc. It keeps me motivated to continue the story! Please keep reviewing and stuff.

* * *

Chapter 3:

Things were going exactly according to Master Daemon's plans. Ok, he didn't exactly know what Daemon's plans really were because he was sure his master held certain information from them… but from what their master told them, things were working out perfectly.

And things were especially going well for him, the most loyal, dedicated, and useful member of what they liked to call themselves the 'Daemon Corps.' And the other two digimon knew it as well or else they were extremely thick-headed and had a serious case of denial. LadyDevimon and MarineDevimon had nothing on him, SkullSatamon! Oh, not to mention, Master Daemon had chosen him over the other two to be commander over master's army. And being commander over their forces meant that he could order the other two corps around. That was something the other two had not been happy about, but they were just going to have to get over it. Like he said, he was the best option and his master saw that and put him in charge. The other two Daemon corps just didn't have all of this that he had going on for them.

For a while, he was really left in the dark of their master's plans; all of them were for that matter. Three years ago, he had gone to Dragomon's castle in the Dark Ocean to tell the big buffoon to destroy the digidestineds. At the time, the digidestined possessing the dark spores was attempting to take control over the Digital World, and with the other digidestineds out of the way, the dark spores would continue to grow. What Master Daemon planned to do with the dark spores, he had no idea, but it, supposedly, was going to give master some sort of power that made him unbeatable. He tried to tell his master that there was no need for this power and that master was strong enough as he was right now to defeat the digidestineds, and early on his master had believed him. But once his master sat back and watched the digidestineds first defeat Dragomon and the revived Dark Masters and then MaloMyotismon, Master Daemon became more concerned with them and knew he needed to become stronger. After MaloMyotismon was defeated, that was when they had been ordered to gather up some of the strongest evil digimon. He, LadyDevimon, and MarineDevimon had then travelled the entire Digital World- yes, the _entire _Digital World- for the past three years convincing more and more digimon to become part of the forces, sometimes violently. And they weren't just searching for the weak of the weak like those dumb Veggiemon and not even Vilemon. No, they were looking for terrifying digimon like Devidramon, Cerberumon, WaruSeadrmon, and there were even some mega digimon that Daemon had brought like Darkdramon. This wasn't you're ordinary 'evil-guy's army; this was legit.

And he was in control of the forces ever since about a week ago. Master Daemon had promoted him and then ordered him to send a couple rogue digimon from the army out into the Digital World. Well, they already were in the Digital World, but it was an area that not many digimon went to. And even when a stray digimon would stumble across this place Daemon would confront them and either make the digimon join their forces or his master would just kill the digimon on the spot. Most likely it was the latter. And a couple of times the digidestineds and their digimon partners would come close to this place, but that was when his master would send out a rogue digimon to occupy them and force them away from their camp.

Which was where he was right now. His master had called him to speak in private, and he had to admit he was a little worried. His rogue digimon that he had been ordered to send out were not causing the digdesinteds much if not any trouble. Was his master about to kill him, or even worse, torture him? That wasn't something he wanted…

He looked up from the ground he had been staring at and continued to fly forward through the middle of the camp. He passed by a couple of tents that some of the digimon who actually had arms had built for themselves. Other digimon were sitting around a fire, talking. He looked up upon hearing a loud cry from above and saw a large purple and aqua-blue-colored bird with pink feathers on the ends of its wings. The digimon had sharp talons and beak and was pretty intimidating, despite the colors of its plumage. It was one of the digimon Master Daemon had found; an Ornismon.

Taking his eyes off of the bird digimon, he looked back up at the nearing mansion Master Daemon had built for himself. Actually, his master did not build it. Devimon had back when that digimon was working for Myotismon and using the dark gears; Daemon had just relocated the building. The feeling of dread inside him kept building up as he neared the mansion, not taking his eyes off of the building. Unfortunately for him, that was not a good idea.

"Argh!" he called out when he flew right into something hard but at the same time slimy and gross. He flew back from whatever it was he had run into and started brushing the slime off of his body.

"Heading to go see _Master, _I presume," an all too familiar voice spoke up. He looked up and saw that his suspicions were correct; MarineDevimon was standing in front of him with one of his tentacles blocking the pathway leading through the middle of camp where he had just been flying earlier.

He sighed, now wasn't the time for this, "What do you want MarineDevimon?"

Sensing his tone of urgency, MarineDevimon chuckled, "A little worried about your meeting I see, _commander. _Your pathetic rogue digimon haven't done anything."

"Oh please," a new, but also familiar voice said. He turned and saw LadyDevimon appear from the shadows caused by one of the camp's tents. "Like you could do much better," the she-demon added.

MarineDevimon's smug smirk was wiped off as anger was replaced, "This is not your place LadyDevimon."

"Oh but it is!" she said with a smirk of her own, "You sit back thinking you have so much power, but you are too afraid to do anything yourself!"

What was she trying to do? Master Daemon had ordered them not to go after the digidestineds themselves; supposedly he needed them for some big thing that was coming up… soon hopefully. So why was LadyDevimon urging MarineDevimon on? Something inside him told him it wasn't just a slip of words. He listened more intently as the two corps continued fighting.

"And look at you! I don't see you doing anything yourself, you hypocrite!" MarineDevimon fired. "Besides," he continued, "We were ordered not to go after them ourselves."

LadyDevimon started laughing, "You really think he cares about you? He's Master Daemon, he could defeat the digidestineds right now if he really wanted to, and you are simply one of his pawns. You mean nothing to him, and you haven't done anything to prove yourself either!"

MarineDevimon's anger intensified as he started growling, "I am _not _a pawn!"

"Then prove it!" LadyDevimon challenged.

"I'll show you! I'll show you, and I'll show Master Daemon! I'll show all of you! I am _not _a pawn! I am strong! I'm going to defeat the digidestineds by myself!" MarineDevimon yelled, and with that he turned and started running away from the camp.

"MarineDevimon!" he yelled at the digimon, "I order you not to go!"

MarineDevimon turned, "Sorry _commander _but I'm not your pawn either. Besides, I won't have to worry about you after your little meeting with Master. Have fun with that by the way. Know while you're being destroyed by master I'm going to be defeating the digidestineds!"

Oh, that's right; he still had his meeting with Master Daemon. Fuc…

"What were you thinking?" he asked, facing LadyDevimon.

She had an evil smirk on her face… a creepy one, too. That digimon could seriously be freaky sometimes. And those dark spirit things on her shoulder and elbow… creepy.

"Master's orders," she passed it off acting like it was nothing.

"Master's orders?" he asked incredulously, "What do you mean mast…?"

She cut him off though, "You honestly don't believe you're the only one he trusts anymore. I've had secret missions here and there, one of them being to get rid of _that _one," she said nodding her head towards MarineDevimon who was already a good ways away from camp.

"And you tricked him into fighting the digidestineds so he could be destroyed?" he asked.

She nodded, "And if by some miracle that will never happen he does manage to destroy a couple of the digidestineds then Master will praise me for my brilliant idea."

"I see…" he said, "Well I got a meeting…"

She cut him off again, though- she really needed to stop doing that, _he _was the commander here, _not her. _"I do too. Now let's go before we're late and he really does contemplating destroying us."

He nodded before they both took to the air and flew off through the camp towards the mansion. They both were relatively fast fliers- he more so, but he flew a little slower so she could keep up- and made it to the mansion in a matter of minutes.

They walked up to the door and it opened up on its own, acting as if it possessed a mind of its own like it always did. For a second he thought he should try and flee to avoid his master's punishment, but that would probably end up doing more harm than help. No, better to face what was coming for him now and get it over with rather than running away and just delaying his eminent punishment.

"Don't look so afraid of your life, SkullSatamon," LadyDevimon said to him.

He looked to her in confusion, "I've let Master Daemon down. He's going to be…"

A not so loud but clearly audible, maniacal laughter that was neither his nor LadyDevimon's filled the mansion. He looked up towards the second floor and saw Daemon standing on the railing. His master jumped down and landed right in front of him and LadyDevimon, looking between the two of them with his piercing, silver eyes. His two purple and black wings extended out from his back and his horns protruded from his hood. His master was simply standing there, but there was something about Daemon's presence that made him feel chills throughout his entire body and want to be anywhere but here. He held his spot, though, as his master started to speak.

"SkullSatamon, do you honestly think I expected those rogue digimon of yours to destroy the digidestineds?" his master asked him.

He answered, "I… I suppose not, master."

"Master Daemon, I have followed your order and MarineDevimon is currently setting off on a suicide mission to destroy the digidestineds single-handedly!" LadyDevimon spoke up not hiding the pride in her voice. Just who did she think she was?

"Ah," Daemon said, nodding, "Very good LadyDevimon. With that worthless digimon out of here we can advance to the next part of my grand scheme."

"Which is…?" he asked confusedly.

LadyDevimon scoffed, "Why, destroying the Digimon Sovereign, of course."

He looked first at her and then to his master, eyes wide open and jaw dropped. "What?" he asked, "We can't…"

He was cut off by Daemon though, "We can and we are going to destroy the Sovereign. With them out of the way we will be in control of the Digital World. Then we can make the digidestineds squirm as they try to figure out what's wrong. While they're not expecting it, we attack… after I take the dark spores from my precious Ken. Then we destroy them once and for all. But, first things first, Commander, assemble the troops and wait for my next order. LadyDevimon, if you would join me…"

"Of course Master Daemon," the she-demon replied instantly. She gave him an evil smirk of her own as she joined their master's side and the two of them flew back up to the second floor. LadyDevimon didn't leave without adding, "It'd be best to follow orders… _commander_."

What in the world was going on? Ok, Master Daemon was a very strong digimon, there was no doubting that, but he was going to test his powers against the Sovereign? That was a little extreme, and why hadn't he heard of this plan in the first place? He was the commander of Daemon's army. He was his master's second-hand mon. Hadn't his master given him authority over LadyDevimon and MarineDevimon as well? It seemed like he was being left out of so much of Daemon's plans, which reminded him of LadyDevimon's words from earlier. '…and you are simply one of his pawns.' That was what she had told MarineDevimon. And she had said _one _of his master's pawn_s_ meaning his Master had more than just one pawn. Was what LadyDevimon said just used to piss MarineDevimon off enough so he'd leave and get himself killed, or was she trying to tell him something as well? Could he be one of Master Daemon's pawns? And if so, who's to say his master wasn't using LadyDevimon as a pawn as well? One thing's for sure, he wasn't about to be anyone's pawn, not even Master Daemon's. But for now all he could do was follow orders, so he flew out of the mansion and started assembling the forces.

* * *

Wow, this day had turned out to be a rather crappy one. He had to wake up this morning much earlier than what he usually did to go to his organic chemistry class. His other two classes for the day had assigned a ton of homework which he hadn't been able to get any of it done due to the recent digimon attacks. Patamon had got hurt, and TK had gone off at him and left to stay at Willis's. Then when they were having one of their digidestined meetings- which they hadn't had in a long time due to nothing going on in the Digital World, until now that is- they had received two more distress calls. Biyomon had been attacked by Musyamon and then Wolfmon and Groundramon had showed up as well. Before the fight had even begun, Wolfmon had snatched his digivice making him and Gabumon completely useless for the fight. Agumon had to digivolve to WarGreymon to defeat all three digimon on his own. Then when they got back they had to wait for the others to get back. Izzy and Joe arrived about fifteen minutes later saying they were about to be defeated by a Tankdramon and SkullScorpiomon when Willis's digimon had arrived and saved them. They said TK was with him, but they had already gone off to find the portal that would take them to America with Mimi and Michael. After that, they had all decided it would be best to go home and call it a night, which he didn't object; he was so tired right now, but he had to go to his dad's place. Without TK.

Not even noticing it, he found himself standing in front of his dad's apartment door. Gabumon was standing next to him looking from the door to him. Finally realizing he didn't have a key, he lifted up their welcome mat sitting in front of the door and picked up the spare they always had lying there. Dropping the mat back down, he inserted the key and turned until the door was unlocked. He opened the door enough so he and Gabumon could get through, entered the apartment, and then locked the door behind him.

"Dad, I'm home!" he called out loudly.

"TK? Matt?" he heard his father call out worriedly. 'Great,' he thought to himself, his dad had probably stayed up stressing himself out thinking that something was wrong. Probably freaked himself out thinking TK would never come back and this time his brother had taken him as company. "Matt!" his father said as he walked up to him, relief evident on his face. That was short lived though.

"Where's TK?" his father asked sternly.

He sighed, "At Willis's?"

"What!?" his father was appalled.

"You heard me!" he snapped back.

Tilting his head in confusion his father asked, "Why is he…?"

"He got mad at me and left," he said simply.

"Yamato…" his father said. It took all the willpower in him not to slap his dad silly; he hated it when people used his real name.

"What?!" he fired back, a little more harsh than intended. But that was expected; he was already in a bad mood to start out with and his father wasn't exactly helping his mood.

"If you don't remember, we already lost TK once…" his dad started, but he cut his dad off.

"You don't think I remember that?! I was worse off than you…" but he too was cut off.

"Don't you dare think you had it worse than I did! You know how much I beat myself up, blaming myself for everything that had happened. I kept telling myself I was the worst father on the face of the planet… and once we got him back I vowed to never lose any of you ever again! And now what? TK's off with some stranger because you got all fussy with him…"

"Oh," he yelled back, his anger multiplying by the second, "You're going to blame this on me!? Unbelievable!"

"Isn't it true though? I know you have a bit of a temper Matt, and you let it get out of control and now TK is gone again!" his father hissed.

He was about to punch his dad across the face but Gabumon grabbed his arm, holding him back. Which probably was for the best; he could cause some damage. "You weren't even there!"

"I don't need… where are you going?!" his father called out, but he didn't get a chance to hear the rest; he was already slamming the door behind him, running through the hallway of the apartment complex, down the stairs, and out onto the streets of Odaiba. He stopped sprinting so he could gather his breath and turned when he heard his partner's voice coming from behind him saying, "Matt! Matt! Wait up Matt!"

"Sorry Gabumon," he mumbled, frustrated. How could his father blame him for TK's decision to stay the night away? Ok, he was worried about TK too- he was always worried about TK- but his dad was overreacting, right? He didn't really mean all that he had said, it was just out of frustration? The more he thought about it, though, the more he agreed with his father. It really was his fault that TK had left, and what if he didn't come back? What if something bad happened and they never got to see his little brother ever again?

"Matt, are you ok?" Gabumon asked.

"It's all my fault Gabumon," he said, the frustration leaving as sadness replaced it, "I shouldn't have been so overprotective of TK! I really am the one to blame!"

Gabumon grabbed his shoulders- which was really hard for the digimon as he had kept on growing taller over the years but Gabumon had stayed the same height. "Matt," Gabumon said, "You can't honestly believe that! You were just being a loving, caring brother! TK overreacted and he shouldn't have done that… although you were being a bit overprotective."

"So it is my fault!" he concluded.

"What?" Gabumon asked confused, "Did you not just listen to me?"

" 'I was being a bit overprotective,' heard you loud and clear," he answered.

"Matt! I…" but he once again interrupted his partner.

"It's ok Gabumon. I understand. It's just been a rough day," he said, smiling at his partner. Honestly he didn't feel any better at all, but he was done trying to talk about it; he needed some time to think things over. Besides, he might be overreacting and TK would more than likely apologize the next day and be back in Odaiba. He sighed heavily and said, "Come on, let's go to my place."

Tai was going to be there, and more than likely he was already asleep and- due to him being a heavy sleeper- he wasn't going to have to worry about him waking up. And the good thing was that his apartment wasn't too far away from his dad's place.

He and Gabumon walked silently through Odaiba, and they hadn't passed by many people either, which was good for them since Gabumon didn't have a disguise on him. The people who walked by him at this time of night either didn't look up from the sidewalk or were drunk and trying to find their way to the next bar. As he walked- still thinking about all that had happened today- he took his phone out and started a new message. It was addressed to TK and he wrote, "Are you ok?"

He put his phone back in his pocket and continued walking. He checked his phone periodically, but he didn't receive any messages. Could TK still be mad at him? Or, even worse, was he in danger and couldn't respond!? He was about to dial his brother's number and see if he would answer when he heard a beep and saw he received a new message. He tilted his head in confusion seeing it was from a random number, and opened the message. He read,

"Hey, this is Willis! TK apparently doesn't want to talk to you right now, but he says 'he's perfectly fine and doesn't need you to…' the rest got graphic and I don't want to ble*p my text. Don't worry, I'm working on him."

Well that answered one of his questions. On one hand TK was perfectly fine, but on the other he was still mad at him. Oh well, maybe Willis would be able to talk some sense into his little brother… he hoped.

"Uh, Matt, isn't this your guys' place?" Gabumon asked him.

He turned to the building Gabumon was pointing at with one of his claws and realized he was just about to walk past the place. He rubbed his eyes- he really needed to get some sleep- and yawned as he walked into the apartment building. His and Tai's place was on the first floor so it didn't take long before he was taking his key out and unlocking the door.

He tried to enter the apartment as quietly as possible. The only light in the place was one of the small kitchen lights, but that was enough for him to look around a little bit. He saw Agumon asleep on the couch lying next to… Biyomon?

He nearly jumped out of his shoes when Gabumon ran his foot into one of the chair's in their living room legs and howled out in pain.

"What? Who's there?" he heard Tai's voice call out.

Why was Tai still up? Hadn't he said he was going straight to bed once he got back?

"It's probably just Agumon getting a drink," a girl's voice said.

"Right," Tai said, "Now, shall we continue?"

"Gladly," the girl answered.

It took him half a second afterwards to realize who was in the room with Tai. And guessing by the sounds he was now hearing- which were… disturbing to say the least- his suspicions were confirmed.

Anger returning to him, he stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him- this time not forgetting Gabumon, though- and found himself back on the streets of Odaiba. He kicked the nearest thing in range of his foot and was holding his foot in pain as soon as his foot had come into contact with the fire hydrant- apparently fire hydrants hurt your foot if you kicked them really hard, go figure.

"Matt, why are you so angry?" Gabumon asked.

Ok, that was a good question. Why was he so mad? Tai and Sora were in a relationship, so it was only normal for them to be doing what they were doing at this very moment. Especially since he had told Tai that he wasn't going to be at the apartment. He couldn't stop himself from wanting to rip Tai's head off, though. But Tai was his best friend, and Sora was a great friend too, and he was happy for the two of them… right? He wasn't so sure right now, and, quite honestly, he was too tired to worry about his thoughts and emotions right now. What he needed was a place to stay for the night- he really didn't want to sleep next to the homeless guy who was already asleep on the bench on the other side of the street.

He quickly listed off the names of his closest friends- all digidestineds of course- and stopped once he got the perfect choice. He dialed his friends number quickly and put the phone to his ear.

"Matt, what in the world do you want?!" Izzy growled tiredly over the phone.

He was so relieved Izzy was still awake, "Izzy, I need a place to stay!"

"Your dad's place? Yours and Tai's apartment? Are none of those two options qualified enough for your sleeping needs?" Izzy asked.

He shook his head even though Izzy couldn't see it, "No, I can't go there. Can I crash at your place?"

Izzy hesitated before saying, "Yeah, that's fine. I'll leave the door unlocked. You and Gabumon, I presume he will be accompanying you, can sleep on the couch. Just make sure you lock the door."

"Ok, thanks a lot Izzy," he said.

Izzy mumbled something he couldn't understand and then hung up the phone.

"Do we… do we have a place to stay?" Gabumon asked in-between yawns.

He nodded causing Gabumon to smile. And once again he was walking the streets of Odaiba giving up trying to comprehend all that was going on through his mind and shutting down his mind. He really needed some sleep…

* * *

The room was silent as he was sound asleep. The sun was already well past rising and up high in the sky signaling mid-day. The apartment was quiet save for the sound of his snoring; he was the only one living in the apartment located just outside of his med-school- unless you counted his partner, Gomamon, who sometimes would stay the night periodically. Mostly empty space, the apartment consisted of his bedroom, a couch sitting in front of a medium-sized television which was his living room, a small kitchen, and then the bathroom. The peacefulness of the small room was short lived as he rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed.

This had been one of his most peaceful sleep times; he hadn't woken up during the night, not even once! Although he had stayed up late last night, he didn't study like he usually did most of the night- which he realized he should've studied a little bit last night but the distress calls he and Sora received and then taking care of Gomamon before he gave up and went to bed had occupied made him lose any will to study. He instantly got out of bed- reluctantly of course because his bed seemed to get more comfortable the more he stayed in it- as he remembered the state Gomamon was in before he had gone asleep.

He had felt so useless. Despite all that he had learned throughout med-school, he didn't have any clue what was wrong with Gomamon. Ok, the things that happened to digimon were a lot more different than what could happen to humans, but the same concepts applied to both. The problem was that he didn't know how to help Gomamon. Last night, all he could see wrong with Gomamon was a puncture wound that had to be from SkullScorpiomon. Besides being unconscious as well, those were the only things wrong with his partner, but no matter what he did to help his partner, Gomamon wouldn't wake up.

He quickly walked over to the couch where his partner was sleeping. Fear gripped him, though, as he saw his partner. Gomamon was shivering violently as if he was extremely cold, but when he put his hand on his partner's forehead, he quickly had to take his hand off because of the fever Gomamon had. The puncture wound was red and swollen indicating that the wound was infected; which was weird because he had made sure to clean the wound multiple times before he had gone to bed.

Luckily for him he had left the disinfectant supplies he had used the previous night on the end table next to the couch. He grabbed the bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured a fair amount on a wash cloth. He then applied the wet washcloth onto the puncture wound only to hear Gomamon cry out in pain.

"Sorry bud, but I got to do this," he told his partner, petting his partner's head.

Gomamon seemed to relax a little bit, but he still bit his lip to keep from crying out in pain. And Gomamon still didn't open his eyes. This didn't look too well. The wound should not have been infected when he had been so precarious cleaning the wound the previous night… unless the wound wasn't infected at all. What had SkullScorpiomon yelled out when they had attacked them. There was 'Black Out' where the skull scorpion exhaled a black smog- which was not fun- and then there was 'Poison Pierce.' That was it! The wound wasn't infected; Gomamon had been stabbed by SkullScorpiomon's poison tail.

Upon this conclusion he started flipping out. That venom had been affecting Gomamon for the entire night, and with the way things were looking right now, it didn't look like Gomamon had much time left before… he couldn't say it. He needed to do something, but there was nothing that he could use to get rid of a digimon's poisonous venom. His specialty was people, not digimon. And there weren't going to be any other people who could do more than what he already had. He needed a digimon's help; a digimon who could heal. Ok, Agumon wasn't going to help at all- unless he could burn the venom, but Gomamon's body was already trying to do that with his fever-, neither was Gabumon, Biyomon, Palmon, Tentomon, or Gatomon. What other digimon were there. Patamon, Veemon… wait a second! Patamon could digivolved into MagnaAngemon and wasn't one of his attacks called "Magna Antidote?" That had to be his best shot.

His mind was already one step ahead of him as he found himself already running back to his bedroom to take his phone off his nightstand. He quickly scrolled through his contacts and found TK's number before pressing the 'call' button.

Tapping his foot, he impatiently waited for TK to answer. One, two, three rings… was he not going to answer?

"Come on TK, I need you right now," he said as he looked back to Gomamon who was still shaking violently

"Joe? Joe are you there?" he heard TK ask tiredly.

"Yes!" he quickly responded, "TK I need you! Can you come to my place right now?"

"What? Why?" the blonde asked.

He didn't have time for this, "Gomamon got hurt bad last night by SkullScorpiomon and I think SkullScorpiomon's poison pincer got him. I need MagnaAngemon to heal him now before he…"

TK thankfully spoke up before he said what he really was trying to avoid thinking about, "I understand. Patamon's still weak from last night as well, but I think he'll be able to digivolve. Willis and I will be right over."

Oh, he had completely forgotten about Patamon being injured. And why was Willis going to be with him? Who was Willis anyway…oh, Willis was the other blonde kid from America- the one who wasn't Michael. He didn't have time, though, so he quickly added, "Ok, thanks. I hope for Gomamon's sake that Patamon has the strength to digivolve; I'm not sure how much time he has left. Please hurry!"

"We're on our way," TK said before hanging up. He hung up as well before he walked back to his partner. He wished upon his lucky stars that everything would turn out alright.

* * *

He was exhausted. Like, beyond exhausted. He should've gone to bed like ten hours ago, but the whole time-change thing was screwing with his sleep schedule. After he and Willis had come across Joe, Izzy, Mimi, and Michael being attacked by a SkullScorpiomon and saved them, they, along with Mimi and Michael, had returned to America- New York City to be exact. They had come back through Willis's laptop and thus landed in his room. Mimi and Michael had stayed to talk for a little while in Willis's room before leaving- which had taken them a lot longer than what it should have because they had to smuggle their partners out of the house so Willis's mom didn't see them. They finally had been able to get out of the house, and he had gone back to Willis's room to lie on the bed next to his partner- who still wasn't awake yet making him a bit uneasy- and was about to fall asleep when Willis had entered the room with a look of horror on his face.

_"Dude, it's not even one-o-clock yet!? What are you doing?" Willis asked, appalled._

_"I'm sleeping," he answered simply._

_"Terriermon, Lopmon, don't let him fall asleep. I'll be back in a second," Willis said before leaving the room._

_"Right!"_

_"Gotcha boss!" Terriermon and Lopmon both called out putting their little paws to their foreheads in a mock salute. He didn't think anything of it, but then the twin digimon had started jumping up and down on his stomach._

_"Wakey Wakey buddy boy!" Terriermon yelled over his and Lopmon's giggles._

_"This is fun!" Lopmon said happily._

_"Stop this! Get off me!" he tried, but the two digimon wouldn't stop up. After minutes of trying to push the two digimon off of his stomach, he had finally given up._

_"Ok, ok," he said as he sat up, "I'm not falling asleep. I'm sitting up, see?"_

_"Good job you guys," Willis was standing by the doorway laughing. He was holding onto two tall, black pop cans._

_"How long were you standing there?" he asked, annoyed._

_"Only a couple seconds, minutes… you know I really don't remember," Willis laughed._

_He laughed sarcastically, "Very funny. So what's that?"_

_"Your new best friend," Willis answered handing him one of the cans. The label said _Monster, _but that didn't help him at all seeing he never heard of Monster before. The design on the can looked cool, but that didn't mean that what was inside was good too._

_"Umm…." he was confused._

_"They're energy drinks. You drink them and they give you a big burst of energy. I use them whenever I want to stay up all night. Drink one of those babies and you for sure won't be tired anymore," Willis told him._

_"Really? Does it taste good?" he asked._

_Willis nodded, "Yupp. Now, shall we?" _

_He popped the can open and held his Monster up to Willis, "Cheers!"_

Willis hadn't told him of this thing called a caffeine crash. Apparently this drink had caffeine in it which causes one to have a burst of energy, but once this burst ends, you end up feeling more exhausted and tired than you were before you drank the caffeine. Not to mention he had a major migraine going on.

But the night, well, day because he was in America, was really fun. Willis had shown him all around New York City showing him the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park, and the Empire State Building. Willis had also stopped at a random bar called "McGee's Pub and Restaurant." He was confused as to why this pub was so much more intriguing than the millions of others they had passed by, but Willis explained it was the same bar used in one of his favorite television shows called 'How I Met Your Mother,' or something like that. After spending the day touring New York, they had gone back to Willis's place where his mom had burgers on the grill with baked potatoes and then ice cream for dessert. Apparently Willis's mom had not cooked the meal because 'she couldn't cook to save her life,' so they're butler had cooked the meal- to which upon finding out Willis had a butler he had questioned his friend in awe who simply passed it off for them being rich. He wanted a butler. After they had eaten was when his caffeine high had ended to which Willis had given him another _Monster_. Then they spent the rest of the night talking, watching How I Met Your Mother- which he had to admit was his new favorite television show of all time even though he had no idea what they were saying and had to read the Japanese subtitles. After they had watched ten or so episodes of HIMYM, Joe had called, and that left him to where he was now.

Although he had had a great time, he still was upset about Patamon. At least Patamon was awake now. While they were watching an episode of Willis' and his new favorite show called 'Slapsgiving,' Patamon had started moving around and finally woke up. He was so happy Patamon was awake and he had interrogated his partner to make sure he was ok, but he couldn't blame himself for what had happened. If he had gotten to the Digital World sooner then maybe Patamon could've digivolved and defeated Cerberumon before he got hurt. And he also couldn't stop thinking about how much of a jerk he had been to his brother. Matt had only wanted to make sure he was ok, and, ok, he was very overprotective, but that was only because his brother really cared about him and didn't want to lose him. He couldn't stop himself, though, from going off at Matt.

Ever since Kari had freed him from the dark spiral's control and he returned to the others, they had all treated him as if he was a baby. Everyone tried to protect him whenever there was a battle going on, even little battles like the one against Cerberumon. He really tried to suffer through the 'baby'-ing the others were treating him with, but it had just been getting too much. Yesterday, or later today- ah, his headache- was the last straw. And then Matt had texted him asking if he was ok when his brother knew he was at Willis's… yeah, he wasn't a child. He could look after himself.

And Willis had helped him a lot. While they were talking he was able to vent a lot of things he had been holding inside of him, and it felt really good. Willis was understanding and helped him talk through some things; Patamon, Terriermon, and Lopmon had helped him sort things out too. After he had vented about his brother and the others treating him like a child, Willis had then turned the conversation to the topic of Kari. Willis told him that he liked her and asked him if she would go out with him. He told Willis that Kari was dating Davis, but Willis simply said that the two of them didn't belong together. And he had to agree with that, but that might have been just because he really didn't like Davis that much. When Willis asked if he would be mad that Willis liked Kari, he was confused. Willis said that it was obvious that he liked Kari, but he refused. He told Willis about Kiyomi- whom he had like ten text messages from and really needed to talk to- but Willis said that his relationship with her wasn't going to last because he loved Kari. It was at that point that Joe had called and asked him to come to Japan.

Which led him to where he was right now, on a beach lined with phone booths walking to the next portal leading to Japan. He remembered this place; when he was a little kid on his first adventure and other times after that. He told Willis how this was the place where Agumon first digivolved to Greymon to defeat a Shellmon. As they continued to walk, Willis continued to ask him about their first adventure, which he hadn't been a part of.

"So, what was your first adventure like?" Willis asked.

"Umm, well, from what I remember there was a lot of walking," he answered.

Patamon spoke up, "There was. And a lot of running too."

"From evil digimon," he added.

"Like Kuwagamon," Patamon continued.

He kept on going with it, "And Etemon."

"Wasn't there a Myotismon?" Lopmon asked.

He nodded, "Yeah, and Piedmon."

"And wasn't there a Devimon?" Terriermon asked.

He instantly looked down at the ground. Devimon was a touch subject, and that was one of the things he completely remembered from his first adventure. Patamon had sacrificed himself to defeat Devimon; just like when they faced Dragomon and Piedmon.

Willis was glaring at Terriermon and Lopmon had hit the green and white rabbit digimon in the back of the head.

"Hey, what was that for?" Terriermon angrily asked.

"For bringing up Devimon," Lopmon fired back.

"No," he said before the two digimon could start one of their fights, "It's alright. Yeah, Devimon was one of the evil digimon we had to defeat."

"The first major one too. He used these things called black gears to control other digimon and make them do his will," Patamon added.

"You mean like the dark rings and dark spirals Ken used when he was Emperor?" Willis asked.

He nodded and was about to say something when he heard a big splash coming from the ocean. He turned and saw a huge digimon rising up out of the water. This digimon had bright red eyes and a red jewel-looking thing on his forehead. Two tentacles shot out of the digimon's back, and he had two tentacles as arms as well. The digimon had a pointed head in the shape of a cone and he had blackish-blue skin. Maybe it was just cause they were talking of the digimon, but something about this digimon reminded him of Devimon… just in a marine form or something.

"Willis, we need to digivolve," Terriermon said quickly.

"Right," Willis said grabbing his digivice, "Digi…"

"Evil Wind!" the aquatic digimon interrupted while drawing his four tentacles backwards and then thrusting them forwards. Purple wisps of air flew right at them at a high speed and pushed them back into the ledge behind them. He crashed hard and landed on his knees.

"Evil Wind!" the evil digimon called out again, but he reacted before the attack was sent.

"Willis, run, quick!" he yelled out before picking Patamon up- who had fallen to the ground due to the attack- before turning to the side and running as fast as he could. He hoped Willis had heard him and was able to dodge the attack which he heard fly by behind him. He ran without turning back to see if Willis and his partners were ok, though, and kept sprinting as fast as he could. His body was telling him to stop due to his caffeine crash and migraine, but he couldn't unless he wanted to be killed by this strange digimon. Was it too much to ask for to be left alone so he could finally sleep? Apparently it was.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon!

Ok, so this chapter is a shorter one and I don't necessarily like it, though a few of the parts were fun to write. Oh, and this is the first chapter posted from my laptop! Woooooot! This chapter isn't a lot of action, but it starts to create some tensions and it is leading up to something big so... I hope you like it! Review please!

* * *

Chapter 4:

Well, this wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his day, and it had actually been a good day up until now. He had been used to spending most of his time alone nowadays. He worked for the government and no longer had to go to school so he no longer saw his school friends anymore. Then when he and Michael had joined the Japanese digidestineds he thought he'd make a couple more friends, but that wasn't about to happen. Even when he travelled through the Digital World, the time difference between Japan and America made it a pain to try to find times he could hang out with the others. Besides, most of the other digidestineds seemed to look down upon him and Michael because they were the 'new kids' or something. He did have Michael and Mimi, but Michael wanted to spend most of his time with just Mimi- which he understood because he knew Michael really liked Mimi, but, and he would never tell Michael this, but Mimi already told him that he didn't like Michael in that way, so it was basically pointless.

Which was why it was nice to have someone to hang out with for the weekend. TK was pretty cool too.

Speaking of TK...

"Willis, we have to keep running," Lopmon said as he stopped in his tracks and turned around. Looking behind him, he saw that MarineDevimon had his back turned to him and was running in the opposite direction, more than likely chasing TK and Patamon.

"MarineDevimon stopped chasing us? Yay!" Terriermon cheered.

"Crap," he muttered under his breath before taking off after MarineDevimon.

"Wills, what are you…" Terriermon asked confused.

"He's going after TK!" he said as he tried as hard as he could to quicken his pace.

"Oh," Terriermon said, "I forgot."

"Moron," Lopmon added.

Although he couldn't see it, he could picture Terriermon balling up his tiny fist in as threatening of a manner as he could- but seriously, Terriermon would never be seen as intimidating, at least to him. "Why I oughta…"

"Guys!" he warned. They did not need to have another one of their fights right now. Patamon was already tired and he didn't think the little digimon could fair too well against the huge water demon.

"What?" they both asked at the same time.

"Not now," he ordered.

They must have got the memo because they both stayed silent as they ran after MarineDevimon. The marine digimon was running at a much faster pace, though, and he wasn't catching up to TK or the digimon at all.

"Willis, we can…" Lopmon started, but he understood his partner right away. He stopped and as the twin digimon jumped off his shoulders and landed on the ground in front of him, he nodded.

"Digivolve," he said.

His two partners started glowing and his digivice was shaking as his partners digivolved first into their champion forms and then into their ultimate forms. Rapidmon and Antylamon stood in front of him, and Rapidmon put his arm around him and they started flying towards MarineDevimon at a much faster pace.

MarineDevimon had stopped running and was slowly walking forward. He looked around the massive digimon and saw that TK was facing the digimon with his back against a cliff; TK had run out of beach and didn't have a way out of the situation. Patamon was trying to get out of TK's arms, but the blonde had a strong grip on his partner and wouldn't let go. MarineDevimon was closing in on the two; he needed to get there now before something happened! But there was too much distance; he wasn't going to get there in time.

He watched, horrified, as MarineDevimon drew back one of his claws. Antylamon sped up and he encouraged Rapidmon to go faster. Even with the acceleration, though, there was no way they were going to get there.

He faintly heard MarineDevimon shout out something that sounded like "Dark Claw" and watched as the attack headed straight for TK and Patamon. TK dove out of the way of the attack causing MarineDevimon's attack to hit the stone cliff that was behind TK. TK had dodged the attack, but MarineDevimon's attack had caused rocks to fall off the cliff and fall right where TK and Patamon were on the ground.

He was about to freak out, but he had to put what happened to TK at the back of his mind right now; MarineDevimon was already turning towards his direction with a big smile on his face. Anger filled him and he literally started growling at the digimon- which if he was watching himself he was sure he would've made fun of himself for it cause seriously, humans don't growl- and yelled out, "Destroy him!"

"With pleasure," Rapidmon answered along with a, "Rapid Fire!"

Lopmon followed with, "Bunny Blades!"

Rapidmon dropped to the ground and quickly let him go as he shot his attack with his free arm. Once he was on the ground and his partners were fighting MarineDevimon, he ran to where TK had been before the boulders had fallen on top of him. Maybe TK had somehow been able to dodge them; he couldn't be dead… he couldn't be dead.

Luckily he was right. Angemon was flying up from the ground holding an injured but still conscious TK in his arms. Angemon looked beat up too, but the good thing was that they both were alive. Angemon flew right at him and dropped TK off before joining Rapidmon and Antylamon in the fight.

He looked at TK in disbelief, "How…?" he started to ask, but TK cut him off.

"It doesn't matter how, we have a fight to win," TK said pointing towards the battle. He nodded and watched as their partners flew through the air attacking MarineDevimon from all sides.

"Hand of Fate," Angemon yelled sending an orange beam of light towards MarineDevimon. It struck dead on and pushed the digimon back towards Antylamon.

Antylamon was already preparing her attack and yelled out, "Arm Bomber!"

Antylamon released a strong blow that hit MarineDevimon who then went flying towards Rapidmon. Rapidmon then did his attack calling out, "Tri-Beam" and sending three beams of energy towards MarineDevimon.

At that time MarineDevimon yelled, "Evil Wind," but nothing happened. Rapidmon's attack pushed MarineDevimon back towards the ocean and he skidded across the water like a flat rock being skipped. Which was weird because Rapidmon's attack should've destroyed the digimon, but somehow it had just pushed him away… maybe MarineDevimon's 'Evil Wind' had done something after all.

But now that MarineDevimon was gone he was able to completely relax. He just now realized his hands had been balled up tightly into fists and his fingers were happy to have blood circulating back through them again.

Their partners flew towards them and landed. Once on the ground, they all started glowing white and changed back into their rookie forms. Terriermon and Lopmon had a few scratches on them and looked pretty tired and Patamon looked to be in the same state, but the digimon tried their best to act like they were ok. He then took another look at TK and saw he had a pretty nasty cut on his left cheek that was still bleeding. TK also had scratches up and down his arm, but those had stopped bleeding and didn't look as bad as the cut on his face.

After examining his friends and partners, he took the time to examine himself. He had to say he was pretty tired himself, and his body was aching from being roughed up by MarineDevimon. He saw his hands were red meaning that he had been cut somewhere on his body at some point. Probably when MarineDevimon had blown them right into the cliff.

"I think we should go find the others now," TK suggested after some time.

He nodded. They needed to let the others know what had happened.

* * *

"Tai, we should be going," Sora informed him.

He turned his head to the right and looked at the girl lying next to him. This girl was down right gorgeous. Her auburn hair flowed down the side of her face, lightly touching her shoulders. Her brown eyes were shimmering like two gemstones reflecting the sunlight. She had a playful smile on her face. She was the most beautiful girl he ever saw, and she was his girlfriend.

He reluctantly turned his body away from Sora to grab his phone off of the nightstand next to his bed. He pressed one of the buttons on the outside of his phone causing the screen to shine brightly in his face. He groaned when he saw the time, seeing that they had just thirty minutes to get ready and meet the others in the park like he had ordered the previous night via text after the whole 'saving Biyomon and Gomamon' thing.

"Do we have to go? Can't we just stay here?" he asked, hoping she would say yes, but he knew she wouldn't.

She laughed, "We can't stay here for too long or else it won't be special anymore."

And last night really had been special. Well, besides the whole saving Biyomon and almost getting destroyed by three digimon part. After WarGreymon had defeated Groundramon, Musyamon, and Wolfmon, they all had returned to the real world. They waited for fifteen minutes in Izzy's apartment- eating all the snacks that had offered them because they and the digimon were really hungry- before deciding to go after them. Right as they were about to go back into the Digital World, Izzy and Joe landed in the bedroom. They all decided they were too tired to talk about what had happened and Tai told them he would send them a text to meet up the next day and discuss all that was going on.

From there, he and Sora said goodbye to the others saying they were going home and heading straight for bed. And that had been their original plan, until they got to Sora's place and he gave her a goodbye kiss. The kiss had then turned into a fierce making out session that caused things to perk up and they decided to head back to his place. They practically sprinted to his apartment and before they knew it they were naked, in his bed. There was that strange time when they had heard someone walk around and slam the door to the apartment, but they were a little caught up in what was going on to care about it. But yeah, it was one of the greatest nights ever.

He sighed and gave her a puppy-dog face willing her to just stay there, but she giggled a little and threw the covers off of her. He watched her as she got up off the bed and walk out of the room, carrying a pair of clothes and heading for the bathroom. He had to keep himself from running off after her because it was really tempting, but he had more important business to take care of. That stuff can wait for later, maybe tonight if he got lucky.

He threw his side of the covers off as well and got up onto his feet. Rubbing his eyes, he made his way over to his dresser and picked out some undergarments, a tee-shirt, a pair of socks, and a pair of athletic shorts. He then sat on the bed as he waited for Sora to get out of the bathroom so he could use the shower.

It took her a while- girls could take so long to get ready, did they really need all that time?- but Sora finally exited the bathroom fully clothed- unfortunately- letting him go in. He took a quick shower and threw on his clothes. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw that his hair was flying in at least fifty different directions; it was perfect.

Exiting the bathroom, he saw Sora sitting on the couch with Biyomon in her lap. She had a concerned expression etched on her face, but Biyomon was cheerily telling Sora, "I'm fine!"

Agumon was in the kitchen looking through the cupboards. He watched his partner pick out a box of cereal and opened it up pouring a bunch of cereal into his mouth. Usually he would say something to his partner, but he had saved the day last night so he was going to give Agumon a break.

"Are we ready to go?" he asked to no one in particular.

Sora, seeing that he was out of the bathroom now, stood up and smiled at him, "Of course."

He nodded, "Then let's go."

The park was not too far away from his apartment, so it did not take them too long to arrive at the park. It was raining outside- which was really annoying but they had an umbrella at least- and it was considerably cool for it being summer. He liked it though; it was a nice change of pace from the ninety plus degree days they had been having recently. Because of the weather, the park was completely deserted and everything had a nice coat of water on it.

He took his cell phone out and saw it was ten minutes before midday. Because of their early arrival, they were the only ones there so they found a tree to stand under and stood and talked as they waited for the others to arrive.

It took about five minutes before Izzy arrived with Matt right next to him. Sora greeted the two of them and he nodded his head at both. Izzy greeted him in return, but Matt didn't say anything. Matt actually looked troubled, like there was something he was trying to conceal deep inside of him. He also couldn't help but notice the glare he was getting from the blonde. He didn't know what was wrong; maybe it had something to do with TK.

Yolei and Cody were the next ones to arrive, and after they said hello they retreated away from the others as she waited awkwardly for the other digidestineds in their group to arrive. Ken arrived next and Yolei was instantly overjoyed; he could see something forming between the two despite his disliking of Ken- he couldn't get over the whole Digimon Emperor thing just like mostly everyone else. Joe was the next one to show up. The soon-to-be doctor was carrying an injured Gomamon who did not look good at all. Gomamon was unconscious but was shivering violently. Joe looked worried and didn't say anything to them. Cody broke away from Yolei and Ken to stand next to and talk to Joe.

He winced as Davis and Kari then arrived hand-in-hand. Don't get him wrong, he loved his little sister and Davis and he was glad they were happy together, but there was just something… wrong with them. Maybe he was just imagining it because he was Kari's older brother and didn't want her to date anyone yet- and he also had a sort of rivalry against Davis- but he didn't feel like the two of them were right for each other.

He hugged his sister and shook Davis's hand before looking around at the group. Ok, he and Sora were her along with Matt, Izzy, Joe, Kari, Davis, Yolei, Cody, and Ken. Who did that leave? TK, he wasn't here, and Mimi too. And then there were those other two Americans, Willis and Michael? Were those their names? He didn't know; he didn't really worry too much about them. Yeah, they were digidestineds and everything, but they weren't part of the original team, the core.

"Ok, so any news on where the others are?" he asked the group.

"Mimi texted me saying that her and Michael were not going to make it," Izzy spoke up.

"What about TK?" Matt was obviously concerned and worried.

He rolled his eyes, but Joe answered, "He and Willis should be here soon."

He shot Joe an inquiring glance to which Joe supplied, "I need Patamon to digivolve to heal Gomamon."

"Right, so shall we…" he started before he was cut off.

"You guys weren't about to start without us, were you?" he heard a voice ask from behind him.

He turned around and saw Terriermon and Lopmon running at him with their ears over their heads acting as umbrellas- though there ears were still attached to them so they were still getting wet either way. Patamon was flying in the air above the two twin digimon, and Willis and TK were running towards the tree. Once they got under cover, they shook their heads flinging water all over. The two teens looked like they had just jumped off a cliff after running an ultra marathon; they looked exhausted and beat up, bad. Their digimon were the same way, but they seemed to have a little more life to them.

"TK!" Matt called out running for his brother. TK's look of exhaustion instantly turned to one of anger as he stepped out of the way of Matt's charging hug.

"Don't touch me," he shot at his brother. Everyone stopped their little side-chatter to watch as Matt stared at his brother with a mixed look of shock and fear while TK started right back with one of frustration and sheer determination. Something was going on between these two; Matt really needed to back off before he did something to really piss TK off.

"TK, he just wants to know you're ok! You and Willis don't look good!" Kari defended Matt.

TK rolled his eyes but stopped glaring at his brother. "We're both fine," he muttered, looking down at the ground.

"What happened," Matt asked.

Willis then launched into a tale about how they were heading to Japan so MagnaAngemon could heal Gomamon when they were ambushed by a digimon by the name of MarineDevimon. They had got pretty beat up, but they were able to push the digimon away, but didn't destroy him. He was about to interrogate the two more on this new digimon, but Joe interrupted.

"TK, I need Patamon to digivolve now. Gomamon…" Joe said. He turned to see Gomamon was still in the same state as before. Patamon flew right next to Gomamon, who Joe had set down on a patch of somewhat dry grass. TK looked reluctant to have his partner digivolve, but the blonde finally pulled out his green D-3 digivice and Patamon digivolved to his ultimate form. MagnaAngemon then used his "Magna Antidote," on Gomamon. Instantly, Gomamon had stopped shaking. The digimon didn't wake up, but Joe put his hand on his partner's forehead and smiled.

"His fever's broken," Joe informed them, "He should wake up after some time. Thanks TK, and Patamon."

MagnaAngemon had already dedigivolved and was sitting on top of TK's uncovered head. TK smiled at Joe but didn't say anything in return. He then decided to get back to the main topic of the meeting.

"So, guys, we need to talk about the rogue digimon that have been appearing," he said.

Kari spoke up, "Wait, I thought it was only Cerberumon and now this MarineDevimon character. Have there been others?"

He nodded and then told his, Matt's, and Sora's story of how they defeated Groundramon, Musyamon, and Wolfmon in order to save Biyomon. Biyomon then explained how she was visiting the Yokomon Village when Musyamon and Wolfmon appeared and attacked the village. She was caught off guard and was no match for the two digimon, especially since Sora wasn't there to have her digivolve.

After they had recounted their story, Izzy and Joe both explained their battle against Tankdramon and SkullScorpiomon. By the sound of it, they had nearly come close to being defeated, but luckily they got lucky and were able to defeat the digimon.

But after hearing their story, he started to realize that this was serious. First it was Patamon who was in a state of almost deterioration. Then he, Sora, and Matt had almost been defeated by the rogue digimon they faced, but luckily MetalGreymon had been able to digivolve into his mega form to save the day. There also was the close call Izzy and Joe told them about, and by the sounds of it they had nearly been destroyed. Now TK and Willis had been attacked by this new digimon, MarineDevimon. Things were starting to heat up in the Digital World, fast, as if something big was going to happen. The calm before the storm had already happened lasting three years; now the storm was already brewing and they needed to be ready before they were caught in the middle of whatever it was that was coming for them.

"We need to do something about these attacks," Izzy stated.

"No shiz, Sherlock," he said rolling his eyes, "What we need to worry about is what we are going to do."

"Well what do you think Tai," Sora asked, looking him in the eyes. He stared at her and she smiled. 'No, Tai,' he scolded himself, 'Not in front of everyone else.'

"I think we need to go to the Digital World and find the leader of these rogue digimon," he concluded.

Matt instantly opposed, "What makes you think there's someone behind these attacks? We have had rogue digimon pop up in the past."

"Yes, but…" he tried, but Izzy stopped him.

"It seems logical that there would be a leader of these digimon that have attacked us. Yes, we have dealt with random digimon attacks before, but that is exactly what they have been, random. These digimon attacks have been back to back. Granted, I cannot supply sufficient evidence to prove my hypothesis, but my instinct is telling me Tai is right."

He nodded at Izzy before continuing, "So I think we should go into the Digital World and look for this new enemy."

"What?" Matt yelled at him. He was really into yelling at him recently. Sure they had fought a little the other night, but they were tired and in bad spirits. This was midday and Matt should be back to normal. Something was wrong though. "You're suggesting we go to the Digital World literally looking for trouble!?"

"Well what do you think we should do, hot shot?" he asked Matt.

"We don't go looking for this new enemy if there even is one! We know nothing about what is going on; we would be going into a fight practically blindfolded with no information for us to use whatsoever," Matt answered.

"Yes, but it's better than just sitting here doing nothing as the enemy prepares to fight against us. I can tell something is going to go down, something big, and it's going to happen soon…" he replied.

"The new evil," TK said quietly and ominously.

All eyes turned to the blonde who was looking down at the ground, listening in to the conversation.

"What do you mean TK?" Kari asked.

TK looked up at each of them and continued, "Don't you remember what Gennai told us three years ago? He warned us about an enemy that we would face who we have faced before. That was MaloMyotismon, but MaloMyotismon wasn't the only digimon Gennai foreshadowed. He said there was a new evil, one we never faced before, and one who was stronger than Piedmon, Dragomon, and even MaloMyotismon. I think this digimon is the mastermind of these recent attacks."

Everyone stayed silent as they thought back on that day three years ago when they met Gennai in Primary Village. Now that he thought about it, TK was right. He didn't know how he could've forgot about that…

"So why don't we go to the Digital World right now and look for this new digimon. We can take him!" Davis spoke up.

He rolled his eyes and looked at his sister's boyfriend, "Because, although I can't believe I'm saying this, Matt is right. We don't know anything about this new digimon. I agree, we have to go to the Digital World and deal with this new evil, but we need to prepare first."

"We're as ready as we're ever going to be," Davis said.

"No, we're not Davis! Stop being so arrogant and use your damn head for once!" Matt shouted.

"Now you listen here…" Davis started, but he interrupted.

"Guys! Fighting is not going to help right now!" he shot, glaring at both of them.

"You all need to stop this right now!" Sora called out suddenly, "Tai is right, we can't fight with each other at a time like this. If there really is a new evil preparing to attack us, then we need to make sure that we are ready at any time, and fighting with each other is going to worsen our chances of defeating this evil."

He was about to speak up, but Sora glared at him and he shut his mouth. Davis and Matt both stayed silent too, but they looked extremely frustrated. Whatever happened to the times where everyone got along and no one got hurt and… apparently those days were gone.

The rest of the meeting was frustrating as they fought again, but this time it was about the topic of what to do with the digimon. They couldn't decide to keep their partners here in the real world, or if they should sent them back to the Digital World. Obviously the digimon needed to be in the Digital World- it was their home- but at the same time the digidestineds were reluctant to let their digimon go due to all of the distress calls that have been going on. In the end, they decided that the digimon needed to go back to the Digital World except for Gomamon, TokPata, and Biyomon- Gomamon because he was still recovering, Patamon because of the attacks from Cerberumon and MarineDevimon, and Biyomon also because of the recent attacks.

Once it was decided, TK said, "Alright, I'm heading home before I collapse."

He looked the blonde over and he had to say it was a really great idea. TK looked exhausted like he didn't sleep well last night. Plus the scratches on his arms and the cut on his face had to have been affecting him. TK waved goodbye before walking off.

"I'll walk you home!" Kari quickly shouted out as she ran off to catch up with TK.

"I'll go with you guys! Wait up!" Yolei also ran after TK.

He heard Davis growl and run after his girlfriend. Cody also said goodbye and ran after the others. Ken, now being the only 'young' digidestined save for Willis, also left along with Willis. Then Joe headed off, along with Izzy and Matt. He looked at Sora, the only one left, and said, "Shall we?"

"No," she said simply and then walked off towards her apartment. What was wrong with her? Ok, he did give her a piece of his mind during one of the arguments, but why would that affect anything? It shouldn't, but apparently it did; Sora was not happy with him at all. Damn, he was looking forward to going back to his place with her too.


End file.
